Lacey Bridges
“Gangster Squad” director Ruben Fleischer will direct Captain America’s Chris Evans in “Jekyll”, based on the BBC series.
The Lionsgate project now goes head-to-head with a fellow Jekyll project starring Russell Crowe at Universal. May the best, er, personalities win!
According to Deadline, Marc Platt is producing with Ellen DeGeneres and Jeff Kleeman, through through their A Very Good Production banner, and scribe team Anthony Bagarozzi & Charles Mondry have written a script based on the Steven Moffat-scripted six-episode miniseries.
In the miniseries, James Nesbitt played Jackman, a modern-day descendant of Jekyll who is beginning to exhibit the trademark split personality. The father and husband abandons his family, without explaining why, and lives in a fortified basement with a psychiatric nurse as his ally. When they strap the doctor to a metal chair, she watches him transform into an alter ego who rages, shows heightened strength and speed and can be a charming, flirtatious scoundrel as well. The two personalities try to co-exist, even though one doesn’t remember what the other does while in control of the body. They use a microcassette to leave messages for each other. Unable to stay away from the family he left behind for their own safety, he visits his wife, Hyde assumes control and learns about them, and things grow very complicated.
Fleischer is currently working on the long-awaited sequel to “Zombieland” with returning players Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.
