15-05-2025
Mike Goodridge Joins Forces With Lawrence Osborne & Nicholas Simon On UK-Asia Production Outfit Java Road
EXCLUSIVE: UK author Lawrence Osborne is teaming up with producers Mike Goodridge of the UK's Good Chaos and Nicholas Simon of Bangkok-based Indochina Productions on a new production outfit, focused on adapting his works.
Osborne wrote the 2014 novel The Ballad Of A Small Player, which has been adapted into a film directed by Edward Berger (his first feature since Conclave) and starring Colin Farrell. Good Chaos was lead producer on the film.
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Called Java Road, in reference to Osborne's 2022 Hong Kong-set novel On Java Road, the new company will be based in Bangkok and London and will bring the available rights to Osborne's novels, short stories and original screenplays under one roof and to the screen.
'It has long been my ambition to create a company which could develop my own work in the transition from page to screen,' said Osborne. 'Development, in fact, is always the hardest part in the creation of a movie – but also, perhaps, the most creatively interesting. Java Road is itself a creation arising from a collaboration between friends who share the same vision.'
The team is in process of hiring a development and production executive.
Osborne's other novels, set in locations including Bangkok, Los Angeles, the Greek islands and Cambodia, include The Glass Kingdom, Only To Sleep, Beautiful Animals and Hunters In The Dark. His first novel The Forgiven was adapted into a film by John Michael McDonagh in 2021 with a cast headed by Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain.
His short stories have appeared in magazines such as Tin House and Best American Short Stories; his latest collection of short stories Burning Angel was published in 2023.
Macau-set romantic thriller The Ballad Of A Small Player will be released later this year by Netflix. Farrell plays a gambler who has run out of cash in the iconic Chinese enclave. The cast also includes Fala Chen, Deanie Ip, Alex Jennings and Tilda Swinton.
Goodridge, who founded Good Chaos in London in 2020, is also in post-production on Laszlo Nemes' first film in seven years Orphan and Jalmari Helander's sequel to his 2022 action movie hit Sisu.
He also teamed with Sean Baker to produce Left-Handed Girl which is premiering here in Cannes Critics Week. In 2024, he produced two films shortlisted for Best International Feature at the Oscars – Baltasar Kormakur's Touch and Sandhya Suri's Santosh.
Good Chaos is also prepping films with Kornel Mundruczo, Anna Biller, Eliza Hittman, Ruben Ostlund and Jasmila Zbanic.
Nicholas Simon, who founded Indochina Productions in 2010, has worked in Asia since the early 1990s when he began producing through Vietnam's first international media joint venture.
Indochina is now one of Asia's leading production service companies working across more than a dozen territories on recent productions including The White Lotus for HBO, Monarch for Apple and The Sympathizer for HBO.
Osborne will continue to be represented by UTA and The Elyse Cheney Agency.
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