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Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Eric Bana Gets "Knights" Gig

Eric Bana is set to play Uther Pendragon, the father of King Arthur, in director Guy Ritchie's "Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur" for Warner Bros. reports Variety.


Bana's  role ''isn't the biggest'' but the director and studio suits wanted to get a big name for the part and initially went after Liam Neeson for the role but he passed on it.

The film is the first in a proposed 3-movie fantasy re-telling of the King Arthur legend--with Sons of Anarchy and Pacific Rim star Charlie Hunnam in the title role.

In the classic tale, Guinevere (“I Origins” actress Astrid Berges-Frisbey) is the young lover of King Arthur before she later betrays him for the knight Lancelot. Ritchie’s film is expected to focus on Arthur’s earliest days. Jude Law is in talks to play the villain in the project.

Djimon Hounsou's role of Bedivere is described as a "Merlin-esque figure"who trains and mentors Arthur in the film. Hounsou takes over for Ritchie's "RocknRolla" star Idris Elba who was also reportedly up for the role but couldn't do it due to scheduling issues.

"Fifty Shades of Grey" and "The Fall" star Jamie Dornan was previously suggested as a potential candidate a few weeks ago, but his commitment to the steamy sex franchise may have blocked him from doing the role There's bit of irony here considering Dornan replaced Hunnam in the lead role in Grey after he suddenly left the film.

 Joby Harold penned the script for the first part.

 Akiva Goldsman, Lionel Wigram Harold and Tory Tunnell will produce.

Ritchie and Wigram developed a version that fell apart when David Dobkin's "Arthur & Lancelot" got much closer to production. Ultimately that project never came to be either due to budget issues.

The film is currently slated for a July 22nd 2016 release.

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