Caffeinated Clint
Theatre actor Benjamin Walker, who recently snagged the lead role in the Fox tentpole “Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter”, has snagged himself [another] plum film gig.
Walker has been cast as the archangel Michael in director Alex Proyas’s “Paradise Lost”; inspired by the John Milton poem, the Warner Bros blockbuster sees Lucifer being cast out of heaven and putting the gloves on for an all-out slugging match on Earth.
Bradley Cooper is playing Lucifer.
Speaking to Deadline from the anointed filming locale of Sydney, where he’s prepping for a January start, director Proyas (“The Crow”) said the film is a daunting challenge, but he thinks with the right cast and crew he can pull it off.
“It’s not just armies battling in an epic war,” Proyas told me. “This is an adventure about the origins of good and evil after Lucifer’s rebellion gets him cast out of Heaven and leads to a struggle with his brother archangel over the soul of mankind, starting with Adam and Eve. That is the scope of the narrative here, and we’ve tried to say as faithful as possible to Milton’s text, particularly its focus on Lucifer’s evolution and the birth of evil. It’s a family saga, about a group of brothers, two in particular, who are on divergent paths, and Lucifer’s feelings of betrayal by his father and family that forge his descent into evil.”
Proyas says the film, which will likely be in 3D, features three major set pieces.
One that takes place in Heaven, another in Hell, and a third in Eden. “I’ve sometimes thought that only an insane person would want to make this movie, because it’s visually audacious and has to live up to a classic poem that is so beloved,” Proyas said. “I don’t think the visuals could have been done justice until now, which is the great fun of being a film director in this modern age of visual effects. Despite all those possibilities, the characters are what’s most important. His deal isn’t closed yet, but I think there’s a wonderful duality about Ben’s persona, this combination of great strength and perfect innocence that works so well for Michael. And Bradley is the most charming guy you’ll ever meet, with this extraordinary charisma. Lucifer was the brightest and smartest of the archangels, and even as he descended into evil and evolved into Satan, he’s not just some black-and-white villain. Bradley brings extraordinary depth to that journey.”
No doubt they’ll be confirmation of Walker in the coming days.
