Tom Holland's Fred Astaire Biopic: Everything We Know So Far

What is the Tom Holland Fred Astaire movie, and what has actually been confirmed?

Here is the solid ground, drawn from the casting announcement of September 25, 2026 as reported by outlets including TheWrap, NME, Complex and BroadwayWorld.

The film is a Sony Pictures project. Tom Holland is playing Fred Astaire. Sabrina Carpenter is playing Ginger Rogers. Margaret Qualley is playing Adele Astaire, Fred's older sister and the partner he performed with for decades before Hollywood. Paul King is directing. King and Steven Levenson wrote the screenplay. The story is built on Kathleen Riley's book The Astaires: Fred and Adele, and Riley is attached as a script consultant. The film does not yet have a title, and no release date has been set.

The reported description of the story is worth pausing on. It centers on the bond between Fred and Adele, from their early days as a sibling act to Fred's rise as a screen legend. In other words, this is not being framed as a Fred and Ginger romance with a prologue. The sibling act is the foundation, and the Hollywood years are where that foundation leads.

The family is on board. Astaire's daughter, Ava Astaire McKenzie, is supporting the project, and his grandson, Tyler McKenzie, is a consultant and co-producer. Ava McKenzie was quoted in the announcement saying that Fred and Adele's legacy will be "beautifully brought to life for a whole new generation." Paul King said he was "thrilled and honored to have been entrusted with telling the story of Fred Astaire and his original dance partner." Estate involvement does not guarantee a great film, but it does mean the project is being built with access and goodwill rather than in spite of the family.

One small wrinkle is worth flagging for accuracy. An earlier report in the summer named Lee Hall, the writer of Billy Elliot, as the screenwriter. The September announcement credits King and Levenson. I am going with the most recent announcement, but if you saw the earlier name somewhere, that is why.

Who plays who in the Fred Astaire biopic?

The three central roles are set, and each one carries a different kind of weight.

• Tom Holland as Fred Astaire. The lead, and also a producer through his company, Billy17.
• Margaret Qualley as Adele Astaire. Fred's sister and first dance partner, and the emotional anchor of the story as described.
• Sabrina Carpenter as Ginger Rogers. The most famous screen partner in dance history, and the person most audiences will be waiting to see.

What is not yet known is the wider cast. Reports so far cover only these three, and BroadwayWorld noted that details on additional casting or production timelines beyond the reported roles have not been confirmed. That leaves plenty of open questions. Who plays the parents? Who plays the choreographers, composers and studio figures who shaped Astaire's career? Will real-life collaborators such as Hermes Pan appear? None of that has been announced, and I will not guess.

The casting itself is interesting because none of the three is a conventional pick. Holland is a movie star best known for Spider-Man, but with an early career as a stage dancer. Qualley trained seriously in ballet before acting. Carpenter is a pop star with a Disney Channel and film acting background and a stage-heavy live show. I will get into each of them below.

Who is making the film, and does the team have the right track record?

The producers named in the announcement are Amy Pascal and Rachel O'Connor of Pascal Pictures, Ben Holden and Josh Hyams of Lightbulb Pictures, and Tom Holland through Billy17. Executive producers include Harry Holland and Will South of Billy17, and Will Clarke and Andy Mayson of Altitude, with Steven Levenson also credited as an executive producer in one report. Billy17 was founded in 2024 with a deal at Sony Pictures, so this film sits comfortably inside a relationship Holland already has with the studio.

The name that matters most, creatively, is Paul King. Before movies, he directed all 20 episodes of the BBC comedy The Mighty Boosh, earning a BAFTA nomination for Best New Director in 2005. He then wrote and directed the feature Bunny and the Bull in 2009 before becoming a household name in family cinema with Paddington in 2014 and Paddington 2 in 2017. Paddington 2 holds a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes across 253 reviews and grossed roughly $290 million worldwide, a remarkable result for a sequel about a marmalade-loving bear. It earned three BAFTA nominations, including Outstanding British Film and Best Adapted Screenplay.

King's most recent film, Wonka (2023), is the most relevant to this project. It is a movie with songs rather than a full musical, in King's own framing, and it grossed about $634.5 million worldwide against a $125 million budget. Its star, Timothee Chalamet, was cast in part because King remembered his high school performances and thought he could sing and dance. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film 82% positive reviews across 329 reviews. King has, in other words, already spent a film balancing whimsy, movement, old-fashioned musical craft and a leading man who has to carry it physically. That is the closest thing on his resume to an Astaire movie.

Steven Levenson is King's co-writer on the Astaire script, and the reports I read also list him as an executive producer. Beyond that, I will not stretch what the announcement actually says about his role.

The source book is the other quiet strength. Kathleen Riley's The Astaires: Fred and Adele is a dual biography, and choosing it as the foundation tells you the film is not just going to replay the RKO hits. Paul King himself pointed at the gap the story can fill. As he put it in the announcement, Fred left a timeless legacy of dance on film, most famously in his collaborations with Ginger Rogers, while Adele's work has been lost to history.

When is the Fred Astaire biopic coming out?

There is no announced release date. That is the confirmed answer, and every source I read agrees on it.

What exists beyond that is projection. One entertainment outlet pointed to a planned filming start of January 2027, based on comments Holland made in an interview with GQ in June 2026, and floated a 2028 release contingent on that schedule. Treat both as informed speculation. Sony has not published a production start or a release window, and film schedules for dance-heavy productions can shift for many reasons, from rehearsal needs to the availability of a very busy lead actor.

What is confirmed on the preparation side is that Holland has begun. In July 2026, while promoting his summer releases, he said he had started dance rehearsals. When the wider cast was announced in September, reports noted that rehearsals were underway. That is a good sign for the film's seriousness, but it is not a production date.

For a sense of how far off this might be, remember that Holland first said he would play Astaire in late 2021, nearly five years before the casting news. Several reports mention that long runway. Development is a slow art. If the January 2027 projection holds, cameras could be rolling in a matter of months; if it slips, the film could land later. I will update this guide when Sony confirms anything.

Why does Adele Astaire matter so much to this story?

Adele Astaire is the most interesting decision in the whole project, and it is the reason I think this film might avoid the standard biopic trap.

Born Adele Marie Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska in 1896, she began performing at nine alongside her younger brother Fred. The siblings worked together for 27 years, moving from vaudeville circuits to a Broadway breakthrough in 1917 with Over the Top, and then becoming international stars in New York and London in the 1920s. Their big stage hits were Gershwin shows: Lady, Be Good! in 1924, the first Broadway musical scored entirely by George and Ira Gershwin, which ran 330 performances; Funny Face in 1927, which ran 250; and The Band Wagon in 1931, their last show together, which ran 260.

Adele was widely known as a natural on stage. She was known for a squeaky soprano, comic expressions and a habit of ad-libbing on stage; one critic called her the most charming and entertaining musical actress seen in many a moon. The siblings developed a signature exit called the Runaround, in which they stood shoulder to shoulder with arms out like bicycle handlebars and ran in widening circles across the stage. Fred, in the words of one account of the era, developed his distinctive style while supporting his sister's instinctive talent.

Then it ended. After her final performance on March 5, 1932, Adele retired from the stage and married Lord Charles Cavendish, the second son of the ninth Duke of Devonshire, on May 9 of that year at Chatsworth. The couple settled at Lismore Castle in County Waterford, Ireland. Fred, who had to reinvent himself, headed for Hollywood.

And here is the cinematic catch that makes the story so tricky and so promising. According to the reporting around the film, no surviving footage exists of Adele dancing on stage. Her Broadway performances were never filmed. Recordings survive of duets with Fred, but not the movement. Paul King has described her work as lost to history. A film that tries to bring her back through Margaret Qualley is doing something a documentary cannot: reconstructing a performer whose greatest work was not preserved. That is a genuine creative reason to make this movie rather than a tick-box one.

Can Tom Holland actually dance?

Yes, and this is the part of the casting that is grounded in evidence rather than optimism.

Holland began dancing at nine at the Nifty Feet Dance School in Wimbledon, where he was spotted by the choreographer Lynne Page. After two years of ballet, tap and acrobatics training, he was promoted to the lead in Billy Elliot the Musical in London's West End, playing the title role from 2008 to 2010. He also played Michael in the same production. Billy Elliot the Musical, with music by Elton John, a book and lyrics by Lee Hall, direction by Stephen Daldry and choreography by Peter Darling, opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre in 2005, won four Laurence Olivier Awards in 2006 including Best New Musical, and closed on April 9, 2016 after 4,600 performances. Its Broadway production went on to win ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 2009.

His screen work has occasionally hinted at the skill too. A 2017 short film, Joel's Story, documented the Kenyan ballet dancer Joel Kioko and included a scene in which Holland danced alongside him; clips have recirculated online as evidence of his movement. And there was his Lip Sync Battle performance of Rihanna's Umbrella in 2017 opposite Zendaya, which stands as pure entertainment but showed real physical commitment.

What is more revealing is what Holland has said about the gap. In an interview published in July 2026 he said one of his biggest regrets in his career is that after he finished Billy Elliot, he quit dancing. He said he has a desire to use no doubles, to do all of the dancing, and to shoot those dances in one shot, "how he would have done it." He added that getting to re-explore a world he loved and owes so much to made him excited for the challenge. After his first rehearsals, according to reporting around the casting announcement, he described feeling both excitement and absolute dread. I like that second admission. It is exactly what a person should feel about stepping into Astaire's shoes.

That single-take ambition deserves emphasis, because it is a real technical promise. Astaire famously insisted that a dance be filmed in as few shots as possible, with a tracking camera that kept his whole body in frame. If Holland and King are truly committing to long, unbroken takes, the film will demand endurance and precision from its actors and a lot of rehearsal before the camera rolls. It also explains why rehearsals started so early.

A caveat, stated plainly: "plans to" is not "did." The claim that Holland will do all of his own dancing is an intention, repeated in interviews. The film has not been shot. I would treat it as a strong statement of intent from someone with the training to back it up, which is more than most such claims can say.

Why do Margaret Qualley and Sabrina Carpenter make sense as Adele and Ginger?

Two very different careers meet in this casting, and both have a logic.

Margaret Qualley's is the more obvious fit. She trained extensively as a ballet dancer as a young performer, earning an apprenticeship with the American Ballet Theatre, and at sixteen was offered an apprenticeship with the North Carolina Dance Theater before choosing modeling and acting. Her breakout screen moment came through dance: the 2016 Kenzo World fragrance commercial directed by Spike Jonze, in which she improvised much of a wild choreographed routine. She then played the dancer Ann Reinking in Fosse/Verdon (2019), the FX limited series with Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams that premiered on April 9, 2019 and earned 17 Emmy nominations, and she earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for that show and for Netflix's Maid. Her more recent film credits include Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, The Substance and Honey Don't!. Adele requires comic timing, physical charm and stage dance instinct. Qualley has a résumé that touches all three.

Sabrina Carpenter's fit is more of a bet, and an intriguing one. She became known as Maya Hart on Disney Channel's Girl Meets World, which ran from 2014 to 2017, and she appeared in 72 episodes. She has film credits including The Hate U Give (2018), Tall Girl (2019), Work It (2020) and Emergency (2022). She made her Broadway debut in Mean Girls in 2020, though only two shows happened before pandemic closures. Then came the pop career: Short n' Sweet (2024) debuted at number one, Espresso topped the Billboard Global 200, Please Please Please became her first Hot 100 number one, and Man's Best Friend (2025) also debuted atop the Billboard 200. She has won two Grammys and an Emmy, and headlined the Short n' Sweet Tour after opening for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.

Why does that make sense for Ginger Rogers? Rogers was not a pure dancer who happened to act. She was a Charleston contest winner at fourteen, an overnight Broadway star at nineteen in Gershwin's Girl Crazy, an actress with comic range, and later an Academy Award winner for Kitty Foyle in 1941. She was a performer who could sell a song, a joke and a spin in the same breath. A modern pop performer with a theatrical, wink-at-the-audience stage persona is at least a plausible modern analog. Whether Carpenter can inhabit 1930s screen poise is the open question, and only the film can answer it.

One more detail I like: the film reportedly does not treat Ginger as the beginning. In the announced framing, Adele comes first. That means Carpenter is stepping into a role that is famous but perhaps shorter on screen time than fans expect, arriving after the sibling story has done its work. That structure could actually give her a sharper entrance.

Who was Fred Astaire, and why is he still the benchmark?

Fred Astaire was born Frederick Austerlitz on May 10, 1899, in Omaha, Nebraska. He and his sister began performing together as juvenile artists around 1905, and the family adopted the stage name Astaire. After the Broadway years with Adele ended, Astaire faced an uncertain move to film. He did a screen test for RKO in 1933, which did not go well, and made his Hollywood debut in MGM's Dancing Lady that year before signing with RKO, where he became famous.

The RKO decade is where the legend was built, and it is also where the partnership with Ginger Rogers came from. Their paths had actually crossed earlier: when Rogers became a Broadway star in Gershwin's Girl Crazy, Astaire was hired to help the dancers with their choreography. Their first film together, Flying Down to Rio (1933), gave them supporting roles, but a dance number called the Carioca stole the show and the studio noticed.

Astaire's later career is often overlooked because the RKO films are so famous. He returned from a brief retirement in 1946 to headline MGM musicals such as Easter Parade (1948), Royal Wedding (1951), The Band Wagon (1953) and Funny Face (1957). He made Emmy-winning television specials, beginning with An Evening with Fred Astaire, which won nine Emmys. He received an Academy Honorary Award in 1950, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1980, and the American Film Institute ranked him the fifth-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema. This is his legacy as history, and it is why a new film about his beginnings feels like an event.

What made Fred and Ginger so special, and which films did they make?

The pairing is the most famous in dance history, and the facts behind it are more interesting than the myth. They made ten films together. Nine of them were at RKO between 1933 and 1939, and a final reunion, The Barkleys of Broadway, followed at MGM in 1949.

• Flying Down to Rio (1933). Supporting roles; the Carioca number was the hit.
• The Gay Divorcee (1934). Their first starring vehicle, with Cole Porter songs. The Continental won the first Academy Award for Best Original Song.
• Roberta (1935). Billed behind Irene Dunne, and a strong earner.
• Top Hat (1935). The first film written specifically for the pair, and, per Wikipedia's account, the most profitable film RKO made in the 1930s.
• Follow the Fleet (1936). An Irving Berlin score with elaborate dance vignettes.
• Swing Time (1936). Widely considered their peak.
• Shall We Dance (1937). The first Gershwin score in Hollywood, with the roller skate number.
• Carefree (1938). A departure from the formula with fewer musical numbers; it lost money but has been called the greatest Astaire and Rogers picture by some critics.
• The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). The end of the RKO run, a story about a real dance couple.
• The Barkleys of Broadway (1949). Their only MGM film together and only one in Technicolor.

What made them special on screen was a specific combination. Astaire was the technical perfectionist; Rogers was the naturally gifted partner who could turn precision into romance. There is also a persistent myth that they fought. Both of them addressed it directly. Astaire said in 1979 that she was a wonderful partner and that the rumors they fought were untrue. Rogers said in 1980 that studio publicity men were always trying to make it look like they fought.

And a tidbit worth clearing up, since it gets attributed to her constantly: the famous line about Ginger Rogers doing everything Astaire did, backwards and in high heels, did not originate with Rogers. According to the sources I read, it came from a 1982 Frank and Ernest comic strip. It is a lovely line about a real truth, but I would not put it in her mouth.

The rehearsal stories are also part of the myth and, at least in one case, documented. The final routine in Swing Time, Never Gonna Dance, was reportedly shot 47 times in one day before Astaire was satisfied, and Rogers' feet were left bruised and bleeding. That number tells you what the perfectionism cost.

How did Fred Astaire change dance on film?

Astaire's influence rests on two big ideas, both of which are easy to miss now because filmmakers absorbed them so completely.

The first is how the camera treats dance. Astaire insisted that a closely tracking dolly camera film a routine in as few shots as possible while keeping his full body in the frame. Instead of chopping a number into close-ups of feet and faces, the camera moves with the dancers, so you see the whole body do the work. This is exactly the principle Holland has invoked with his single-take ambition, and it is why the promise matters technically.

The second is integration. Astaire insisted that song and dance routines be integral to the plot, so dance advances the story instead of interrupting it. In a film like Top Hat, the dancing is how characters flirt, argue and reconcile. That approach helped set a template for the musical as an art form where movement is a language, not a spectacle break.

His later work kept pushing the technical frontier. In Royal Wedding, Astaire danced on walls and ceilings in You're All the World to Me, using an innovative rotating camera mount and a revolving barrel set that let the camera turn with him. The trick later inspired Lionel Richie's music video for Dancing on the Ceiling. It is proof that Astaire was never a nostalgic act; he was chasing new effects into his fifties.

Which Fred Astaire movies should you watch first?

Here is a starter list built around what each film teaches you about him, with the facts I could verify.

• Top Hat (1935). Directed by Mark Sandrich with an Irving Berlin score including Cheek to Cheek and Top Hat, White Tie and Tails. It holds a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes across 42 reviews and earned Oscar nominations including Best Picture. It was the second highest-grossing film of 1935.
• Swing Time (1936). Directed by George Stevens with Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields songs including The Way You Look Tonight, which won the Oscar for Best Original Song. It holds 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, entered the National Film Registry in 2004, and sits at number 90 on AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition).
• Shall We Dance (1937). The roller skate number, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, and They Can't Take That Away from Me, which received a posthumous Oscar nomination for George Gershwin.
• Holiday Inn (1942). With Bing Crosby, directed by Mark Sandrich, with Irving Berlin's White Christmas debuting in it. It was the highest-grossing film musical to that time and features Astaire's fireworks-studded tap number.
• Easter Parade (1948). Directed by Charles Walters, opposite Judy Garland. Gene Kelly was originally cast but broke his ankle, and Astaire, who had retired two years earlier, was coaxed back. It became the highest-grossing musical film of 1948 and won the Oscar for Best Original Music Score.
• Royal Wedding (1951). Directed by Stanley Donen, with the famous ceiling dance.
• The Band Wagon (1953). Directed by Vincente Minnelli, with Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan. Songs include Dancing in the Dark and That's Entertainment!, and the finale is the Girl Hunt Ballet. Martin Scorsese has named it his favorite musical. It was selected for the National Film Registry in 1995.
• Funny Face (1957). Directed by Stanley Donen, with Audrey Hepburn and Kay Thompson and a Gershwin score. Astaire was 58, three decades older than his co-star. It holds 85% on Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for four Oscars.

What should you watch based on your mood?

Since the site exists for exactly this, here is how I would pick.

If you want cozy and warm, start with Holiday Inn or Easter Parade. Both are built around seasonal songs, both are gentle, and Easter Parade in particular has a lovely comic double act in A Couple of Swells.

If you want romance, go to Top Hat or Swing Time. Cheek to Cheek and The Way You Look Tonight are romantic dance standards for a reason.

If you want something sharp and stylish for a date night, Funny Face pairs Astaire with Audrey Hepburn in Paris and a fashion world storyline, with Gershwin songs.

If you want smart, sophisticated and a little wry, pick The Band Wagon. It is a sophisticated backstage musical, and it is the one Martin Scorsese has named his favorite.

If you want pure spectacle, watch Royal Wedding for the ceiling dance.

If you want something light and silly, Shall We Dance and its roller skates are for you.

If you want to see the partnership begin, watch Flying Down to Rio for the Carioca and The Gay Divorcee for the first true starring vehicle.

How does this compare with other Hollywood musical biopics?

The musical biopic is one of the most bankable and most argued-over genres in film, and looking at how recent ones fared tells you what Sony is walking into. The pattern in the numbers is that performers who genuinely do the singing or playing tend to be rewarded, and audiences show up.

Walk the Line (2005), directed by James Mangold, cast Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter. Phoenix performed all of Cash's vocal tracks, lowering his voice by an octave with coaching, and Witherspoon handled her own vocals as well. Witherspoon won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and Phoenix was nominated. The film earned $186.8 million worldwide on a $28 million budget and holds an 83% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert wrote that he was gob-smacked to learn Phoenix did the singing.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) is the commercial monster of the group. It grossed $911.1 million worldwide against a budget of roughly $50 million to $55 million and won four Oscars, including Best Actor for Rami Malek, who prepared with a movement coach, an accent coach and singing lessons. Critics were more divided, with a 60% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences gave it an A CinemaScore. It is a useful reminder that a divisive review pile does not stop a crowd-pleaser.

Rocketman (2019), directed by Dexter Fletcher, starred Taron Egerton as Elton John, singing the songs himself. It earned $195.2 million on a $40 million budget, holds 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, and won the Oscar for Best Original Song for (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again. Of the group, it is the closest in one respect to what Holland is promising, because its star performed the songs himself rather than miming.

Elvis (2022), from Baz Luhrmann, grossed $288.7 million on an $85 million budget, holds 77% on Rotten Tomatoes, and earned eight Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor for Austin Butler, who won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama. The consensus called it dazzling in energy and style, matched by an outstanding lead performance.

A Complete Unknown (2024), also directed by Mangold, had Timothee Chalamet perform 40 Bob Dylan songs, playing guitar and harmonica himself, with the performances recorded live during filming. It earned eight Oscar nominations, an 82% score on Rotten Tomatoes and an A CinemaScore, and grossed $140.5 million worldwide.

And on the dance side of the screen, Fosse/Verdon (2019) is a useful comparison, since Margaret Qualley was part of it. The eight-episode FX series, with Sam Rockwell as Bob Fosse and Michelle Williams as Gwen Verdon, earned 17 Emmy nominations, and Williams won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.

What does this tell us about an Astaire film? Two things. First, doing your own work is now the expected price of entry, and Holland has already said he wants that. Second, a dancer biopic is a harder engineering problem than a singer biopic. A singer can be recorded live and edited around. A dancer has to be held in a frame, and if the film follows Astaire's own rule of long takes with the whole body visible, there is nowhere for a stunt double or a clever cut to hide. That is what makes the plan both thrilling and risky.

Is there another Fred Astaire biopic in the works?

Briefly, yes, or at least there was. Back in February 2023, Deadline reported that a project called Fred and Ginger, a musical about the relationship between Astaire and Ginger Rogers, had launched international sales through Black Bear International after being set up previously at Amazon, with the financier 30West involved. The reported cast was Jamie Bell as Astaire, described as the technically driven perfectionist, and Margaret Qualley as Rogers, described as naturally gifted. Jonathan Entwistle was named as director and Arash Amel as screenwriter, with Christopher Wheeldon as choreographer and Marius de Vries as music producer.

I could find no recent update on that project, so I cannot tell you whether it is active, stalled or dead, and I do not want to imply either. What I can say is that the two films appear to be different animals: that one was reported as a Fred and Ginger story built around an early career turning point in their partnership, while the Sony film is built around Fred and Adele. It is a curious footnote that Qualley was attached to one project as Ginger and is now attached to another as Adele.

If you liked this, try these next

Because the site exists to answer "what should I watch now," here are picks that scratch the same itch, sorted by what you might be craving.

If you want more of Paul King's touch, watch Paddington 2, which sits at 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and has a wonderful Hugh Grant performance as an actor and master of disguise, or Wonka, which is the nearest thing to a King musical. Both show how he stages movement, comedy and heart in the same frame.

If you want a great dance-focused drama, try Fosse/Verdon. It is about choreographers rather than stars, but it treats dance as craft and labor, and you get to see Qualley in the role of Ann Reinking.

If you want a big, loud musical biopic, go for Rocketman or Elvis. They are two very different takes on the form, one from Dexter Fletcher and one from Baz Luhrmann.

If you want a music biopic that plays it straight and lets the performances carry it, pick Walk the Line or A Complete Unknown.

If you want to see where Holland's dance story began, look for the filmed version of Billy Elliot the Musical, which he appeared in as a cameo in 2014, according to the sources I read. It is a way to see the world he says he owes so much to.

If you want to see the people the film is about, start with Top Hat, then Swing Time, then The Band Wagon, using the mood guide above. It is the best possible preparation for this movie and it costs you nothing but a couple of evenings.

And if you are in a dancing mood generally, we have you covered on other posts: our [Dancing with the Stars season 35 premiere recap](https://www.suggestionlabs.com/blog/dancing-with-the-stars-season-35-premiere-recap) and our [Strictly Come Dancing 2026 guide](https://www.suggestionlabs.com/blog/strictly-come-dancing-2026-everything-to-know) are good places to start.

My honest take on the Fred Astaire biopic

A note on how I am writing this: there is no film to review. Nothing has been shot, so everything below is my opinion built from the announcements, the reporting and what I know of the people involved. It is a reaction, not a critique.

My reaction is that this is the best-shaped biopic pitch I have seen in a while, and the reason is Adele.

The lazy way to make an Astaire movie is to hurry to the RKO years, stage the greatest hits and let audiences hum along. It is a real temptation, because Top Hat and Swing Time are treasures and everyone knows them. But a film that is basically a highlights reel of things you can watch in the originals is a film that has no reason to exist. By building around Fred and Adele, from the sibling vaudeville act through to a screen legend, the filmmakers have found a reason. The original performances are the ones we cannot see. Adele's stage work was never filmed, and the movie can give her back to us. That is what movies are for.

The second reason for my optimism is Paul King. I do not think it is an accident that Sony reached for the filmmaker behind Paddington 2 and Wonka. Those films are built on physical comedy, on generosity, on the belief that charm is a serious craft. That is exactly the register Astaire lived in. He made difficulty look like ease. King makes very complicated set pieces feel effortless and kind, and that is the correct temperament for this material. What I am less sure about is whether a King film will have the edge to portray the harder parts of a life like this one: the perfectionism, the cost, the pressure of always being expected to be the effortless man. The Swing Time story of 47 takes and bleeding feet suggests there is a darker, more obsessive side worth showing. I hope the film has room for it.

Holland is the piece I am most excited and most nervous about, in equal measure. He has the credentials. Two years of ballet, tap and acrobatics at a Wimbledon dance school, and the title role in a hit West End musical. What he said about quitting dancing after Billy Elliot and calling it one of his biggest regrets reads as sincere, not as a press line. But there is a difference between being a very good stage dancer and being Fred Astaire, whose entire appeal was a casual, weightless precision that looked like it required no effort. Astaire made it look easy, and the giveaway of a lesser imitation is when you can see the work. The single-take promise makes this risk very visible. There is nowhere to hide. If Holland lands it, it will be one of the great acting-and-dancing showcases of the decade. If he does not quite, the film will feel like a talented person doing an impression. I am rooting hard for the first outcome, and his line about excitement and dread is exactly the mindset I want from him.

Qualley I feel the most confident about. Of the trio, her background is the most directly relevant: real ballet training, an apprenticeship with American Ballet Theatre, a breakout dance performance in a fragrance ad, and a turn as a Fosse dancer. And Adele is a comic and warm role, which is a different color from the darker work she has been getting in recent years. It might be the most fun she has had in a role in a while.

Sabrina Carpenter is the wildcard, and I think it is a smart wildcard. There is a version of this casting that is only about attention, and I understand why some people will side-eye it. But I would push back on that reading. Ginger Rogers won a Charleston contest at fourteen, was a Broadway star at nineteen and, later, an Oscar winner. She was never just a dancer, and she was never just a name. She was a pop-culture phenomenon who could sell a joke and a song and a turn. Carpenter is a performer who has spent a decade combining stage presence, timing and wit, with theater, television and film work behind her. The questions are whether she can lock into the 1930s screen voice and whether she can hold her own opposite two very physical performers. I do not know. I would not bet against her.

Where I would be honest about the risks: the biggest is the timeline. No release date, a projected start still months out, and a film built around one-take dance sequences is a production where a lot has to go right. The second is scope. Fred, Adele and Ginger together across decades is a lot of story, and biopics that try to cover everything usually cover nothing well. I hope King gives the film a spine, maybe the arc of the partnership with Adele and what it cost to leave it, instead of a checklist.

So my verdict is cautious enthusiasm. If you like musicals, dance, or just a well-made movie about people who are very good at something, this is one to put on the calendar, even if the calendar is blank for now. And if it gets you to watch Top Hat and Swing Time for the first time, then it has already done some good.

Frequently asked questions

Who is playing Fred Astaire in the new biopic? Tom Holland plays Fred Astaire. Sabrina Carpenter plays Ginger Rogers, and Margaret Qualley plays Fred's sister and first dance partner, Adele Astaire.

Who is directing the Fred Astaire movie? Paul King, the director of Paddington, Paddington 2 and Wonka, directs and co-wrote the script with Steven Levenson. The film is a Sony Pictures project.

Is the movie based on a book? Yes. It draws on Kathleen Riley's book The Astaires: Fred and Adele, and Riley is a script consultant on the film.

When is the Fred Astaire biopic coming out? No release date has been announced. One outlet has pointed to a January 2027 filming start and a possible 2028 release, but those are projections, not confirmed studio dates.

Will Tom Holland really do his own dancing? That is his stated plan. Holland has said he has a desire to use no doubles, to do all of the dancing and to shoot the dances in one shot. The film has not been shot, so it remains an intention for now.

Can Tom Holland dance? He has a real background. He trained in ballet, tap and acrobatics as a child and played the title role in Billy Elliot the Musical in London's West End from 2008 to 2010.

Is the movie a musical? It is a biopic centered on dance. Reports describe a story about the bond between Fred and Adele, from their early days as a sibling act to Fred's rise as a screen legend. Whether it will include original songs has not been announced.

Which Fred Astaire movies should I watch first? Top Hat (1935) and Swing Time (1936) for the Ginger Rogers magic, Holiday Inn (1942) for a cozy classic, and The Band Wagon (1953) or Funny Face (1957) for the later, more sophisticated Astaire.

Is there another Fred Astaire biopic in development? A separate project called Fred and Ginger was reported in 2023 with Jamie Bell as Astaire and Margaret Qualley as Rogers. I found no recent update on it, so its status is unclear.

Is the Astaire biopic worth getting excited about? On paper, yes. The director of Paddington 2 and Wonka, a lead with real stage dance experience, and a story that starts with Fred's sister rather than Ginger Rogers make it more interesting than a standard musical biopic. It is still years from release, so treat it as promising, not proven.

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