News: Anthony Hopkins
October 27, 2006Veteran Hopkins may be about to hit his 69th birthday (on 31st December), but he’s certainly not showing his age in terms of workload, with three more films already wrapped since finishing his duties on this week’s All the King’s Men.
The one he’ll be most keen to see do well is Slipstream - largely because not only does he star, but also wrote and directed this surreal psychological exploration of a screenwriter (played by Christian Slater) who starts becoming unable to distinguish between fact and fiction. No release date has yet been set, but then again, it is still in post-production.
Next up, Hopkins looks to be moving back to his most commercially successful role as serial killer Hannibal Lecter. Only it seems that copyright has prevented the producers of Fracture from using that name, so instead Hopkins will be known as the altogether less sinister-sounding Ted, a psycho hounding a young assistant DA. Again, a UK release date has yet to be set, though it is out in the States in the Spring. Another familiar role will be in the recently-announced Harry and the Butler, where Hopkins will – following his acclaimed role in 1993’s The Remains of the Day – play a butler, this time hired by an aging blues man, to be played by Morgan Freeman.
Most promising of all, however, the Welsh national treasure will be cropping up as the beseiged King Hrothgar in Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis’s much-anticipated cinematic adaptation of the ancient epic poem Beowulf. With Ray Winstone in the title role and supported by the likes of John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Crispin Glover and Angelina Jolie, it looks all set to be one of the biggest films of Christmas 2007.
