Doctor Strange actor Benedict Cumberbatch has lined up his next role, and it will be an adaptation of a popular thriller novel.
Between Sherlock and Doctor Strange, Cumberbatch has been filling out some pretty coveted roles in some highly anticipated properties.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, up next for the talented actor is an adaptation of Rogue Male, which he will be both producing and starring in.
Michael Lesslie has been tapped to write the screenplay.
The synopsis for the novel Rogue Male, written by Geoffrey Household in 1939, reads:
A professional hunter is passing through an unnamed Central European country that is in the thrall of a vicious dictator. The hunter wonders whether he can penetrate undetected into the dictator’s private compound. He does. He has the potential target in his sites and is wondering whether to pull the trigger when security catches up with him. Imprisoned, tortured, doomed to a painful death, the hunter makes an extraordinary and harrowing escape, fleeing through enemy territory to the safety of his native England. But that safety is delusive: his pursuers will not be diverted from their revenge by national borders; the British government cannot protect him without seeming to endorse his deed. The hunter must flee society, and he goes literally underground, like a fox to its earth. The hunter has become the hunted.
“I am thrilled both as an actor and producer to be working on bringing this most treasured of English novels to the big screen,” Cumberbatch tells THR.
The adaptation has seen several incarnations in the past, including Man Hunt (1941) and Rogue Male (1977). Although never explicitly stated in the text, the author’s original intention was that the dictator represented Hitler, and so the book’s filmic adaptations often use this as inspiration.
The book does have a sequel, Rogue Justice, written in 1984.
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