This article is more than 1 year old

Mel Gibson to star in Edge of Darkness

Martin Campbell revisits 1985 TV classic

Mel Gibson has signed up to play the lead in a movie adaptation of 1985 TV series Edge of Darkness, Variety reports.

The Aussie thesp is reportedly a fan of the original and was "receptive" when approached by Casino Royale helmsman Martin Campbell, who directed the BBC six-parter and will take the director's chair for the big-screen adaptation.

The script - which sees Gibson play "a straitlaced police investigator whose activist daughter is killed" and who subsequently "uncovers systemic corruption that led to his daughter's death" - is by William Monahan (The Departed).

Quite how the movie will pan out remains to be seen, and we're filing this one under "go there at your peril", since the BBC's Edge of Darkness is considered a bit of a classic, and we seriously doubt whether Gibson can pull off Bob Peck's legendary wide-eyed expression of horror and disbelief.

Campbell, meanwhile, is keeping busy "developing a Universal remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds" - one of a burgeoning roster of ongoing and proposed Hollywood remakes. ®

Bootnote

Hmmmm... Since Campbell directed five episodes of classic shouty blokes-with-shooters romp The Professionals back in the late 1970s, might we suggest it's high time Hollywood revisited the series following the sterling work it did on The Avengers?

Here are our casting tips: Ice Cube as Bodie, Lindsay Lohan as Doyle, Naomi Campbell as permanently-annoyed CI5 head George Cowley and Miley Cyrus as the hapless Hollywood starlet blackmailed by al-Qaeda into poisoning LA's water supply with ricin after the black turbans obtain photos of her in a decidedly unDisneyesque state of undress. Stick a cheque in the post and we'll fax over a plot summary...

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like