Tom Holland will lead the new Fred Astaire film alongside Sabrina Carpenter and Margaret Qualley, who will play Ginger Rogers and Adele Astaire.
One of Sony Pictures’ most anticipated projects is beginning to take definitive shape. Sabrina Carpenter and Margaret Qualley have joined the upcoming Fred Astaire film starring Tom Holland, completing an especially compelling trio set to bring the story of one of musical cinema’s most important figures to the big screen.
Holland has been attached to the project since 2021 and will take on the role of the legendary American dancer, actor and singer. Alongside him, Margaret Qualley will play Adele Astaire, Fred’s older sister and his first major stage partner, while Sabrina Carpenter will portray Ginger Rogers, the actress and dancer with whom Astaire later formed one of Hollywood’s most celebrated screen partnerships.
The casting of the three stars also shares an important common thread: their connection to dance. Before becoming Spider-Man and achieving international fame, Tom Holland began his professional career on the London West End stage in Billy Elliot the Musical. Qualley also has a background in dance, while Carpenter has increasingly incorporated choreography and elaborate staging into her major live performances.
The film, which does not yet have an official title, will not focus exclusively on Fred Astaire’s years as a Hollywood star. A significant part of the story will explore his professional partnership with Adele, with whom he developed a hugely successful stage act before embarking on his film career.
Fred and Adele Astaire conquered Broadway and the West End during the early decades of the 20th century. Their chemistry on stage made them an enormously popular duo, although one particular detail makes this period of their careers even more intriguing: no known footage of Adele dancing is believed to survive.
After his sister retired from the stage, Fred entered a new chapter that would eventually transform him into a cinema icon. His partnership with Ginger Rogers produced some of the most recognisable dance sequences from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Together, they developed an unmistakable on-screen chemistry that turned their choreography into an enduring part of musical cinema history.
Behind the camera will be Paul King, director of Paddington and Wonka. King is also co-writing the screenplay with Steven Levenson, drawing inspiration from Kathleen Riley’s book The Astaires: Fred & Adele. The film is expected to place particular emphasis on Fred’s formative years alongside his sister before exploring his subsequent evolution into a Hollywood star.
The project has been in development for almost five years, making the additions of Sabrina Carpenter and Margaret Qualley two of its most significant developments to date. The production also has a direct connection to the Astaire family, further strengthening a project that aims to revisit both the celebrated and lesser-known chapters of Fred Astaire’s extraordinary career.
