Paul Bettany to Star in New Thriller

This guy hooked up with Jennifer Connelly and peaced out

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Wednesday, February 13th 2008 at 10:44 PM

Where the hell has Paul Bettany been? Maybe I am the only one that enjoyed his performances in A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander and even A Knight's Tale, but since 2003 this guy has either been in crap such as The Reckoning or The Da Vinci Code, or he has been M.I.A. with his wife, and who could blame him when that wife is Jennifer Connelly. However, looking forward I am not sure things are going to get much better.

Young Victoria could be a'ight, Inkheart was delayed until 2025, who knows if Born will ever be made and The Secret Life of Bees is a 50/50 shot. And now we hear about a thriller at Screen Gems of all places, and for an untested director based on that very same director's script of which he wrote with Peter Schink.

Now, this Schink guy fascinates me slightly because after a quick search I see he co-wrote (with two other writers) a short film based on Stephen King's "Lunch At The Gotham Café", a very cool little short story from his "Blood and Smoke" audio book and eventually the compilation book "Everything's Eventual". However, that film was released in 2005 without a whisper and since it was a short it was never heard from again, but I am going to try and track it down (you can watch the trailer here).

As for this Bettany film there is some potential here, and I say this because I love it when religion gets thrown into the mix and it does big time with this one. The film is called Legion and the story follows what happens when God loses faith in humanity and sends his legion of angels to wipe out the human race for the second time. Mankind's only hope lies in a group of misfits holed up in a diner in the desert who are aided by the archangel Michael (Bettany).

Of course the cool factor for this film is going to depend on how they decide to portray everything, whether they go real vs. metaphorical. It could be good, it seems Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper is happy with it telling Variety, "I was so impressed with his rewrite that I took the meeting with him, and his visual presentation closed the deal. I'm sure he had the same impact on Paul."

Production begins in New Mexico in March.