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Benedict Cumberbatch will star in and produce a feature film adaptation of the classic British novel “Rogue Male”.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Lesslie (“Macbeth”) is on screenplay duties while Lloyd Levin, Branwen Prestwood Smith and Beatriz Levin of Black Sheep Pictures along with Adam Ackland of SunnyMarch, Cumberbatch’s production company, will produce.
The survivalist thriller told of a hunter who attempts to assassinate a dictator but is caught, tortured and left for dead. When he escapes back home to England, he must hide out in a harsh countryside with the enemy agents as well as the police in hot pursuit. Rogue Male was published in 1939 and the author, Geoffrey Household, said the dictator was intended to be a stand-in for Adolph Hitler.
The novel has fascinated directors and actors from the day it came out. Twentieth Century Fox adapted it in 1940 as Man Hunt, directed by Fritz Lang and starring Walter Pidgeon (and with Hitler as the dictator) and Peter O’Toole starred in a BBC production made for television in 1977.
“I am thrilled both as an actor and producer to be working on bringing this most treasured of English novels to the big screen,” said Cumberbatch, who read the novel several years ago.
Victoria Nelson brought the project to Levin’s attention years ago and will co-produce.
