Looks like yet another script is going to have the honor of being covered with “NAR” notes. Anthony Hopkins has signed on to star in “Solace,” a long-in-development script that would feature the Academy Award winner as a psychic ex-doctor who now works for the FBI. However, he soon meets his match when he encounters a serial killer who also possesses an uncanny sense of clairvoyance.
“Solace” originated as a spec script over at New Line from screenwriters Ted Griffin and Sean Bailey. Somewhere along the way, things got screwy, and New Line tried to re-work the script into a followup to “Se7en.” While Morgan Freeman was never officially attached, the script essentially turned his brooding cynic Somerset into an action hero chasing after a psychic murderer. James Vanderbilt was hired for a re-write, and now the studio has brought in the big guns, as the current script bears the name of Peter Morgan, the award-winner who penned “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon.” Others involved in the lengthy development have included Bruce Willis and directors Shekhar Kapur and Mark Pellington.
While there’s no director attached, Variety reports production is scheduled to start early next year. Hopkins, who appeared this year in “The Rite” and “Thor” as well as current festival attraction “360,” is still circling a few potential projects, including the lead in “Alfred Hitchcock And The Making Of Psycho” and a re-teaming with Kenneth Branagh for “Italian Shoes.” Meanwhile, HBO’s “The Corrections” is gearing up, and Hopkins is looking to slide right into that project as well (it appears that Donald Sutherland is no longer in the running).