Benedict Cumberbatch just can’t stay out of the news these days. The British thesp is heating up and with TIFF kicking off tomorrow, he’s going to be hotter than ever. It was only a few days ago that we heard rumors of his involvement with Star Wars: Episode VII, which was based on the fact that he departed Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak. It turns out that the actor actually left del Toro’s project for another film though, James Gray’s The Lost City of Z.
The adaptation of David Grann’s novel has been in development for a while, with Brad Pitt set to star at one point. That obviously didn’t work out and now Cumberbatch is set to star in the film as an English soldier named Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, who becomes an explorer and due to his obsession with “the Amazon and belief that an ancient civilization resided there,” sets out on many dangerous expeditions until his financing dried up. At that point, he self-funded his last adventure into the Amazon, but he never returned and was never seen or heard from again.
Sounds like an interesting story and though I’ve never heard of Fawcett before, Deadline claims that his tale is “one of the great exploration mysteries of the 20th Century.”
No word yet on when the film will head into production but with a star in place, things should get moving quickly.Â
Tell us, are you excited to see Benedict Cumberbatch join The Lost City of Z? Let us know in the comments below.
