Variety is reporting that British director Dexter Fletcher has been hired by Paramount Pictures to direct their upcoming reboot of the classic 1960s series The Saint, which had a feature film in 1997 starring Val Kilmer and a recent series.
Seth Grahame-Smith wrote the film’s script.
Dexter is best known for directing Bohemian Rhapsody once Bryan Singer was removed from the project and then directed Taron Egerton in the Elton John film Rocketman, which recently won Best Song at the Oscars this month.
Fletcher’s first big film was the sports comedy Eddie The Eagle starring Hugh Jackman and Taron Egerton.
He’s gearing up production on the third Sherlock Holmes film set to shoot in both London, England and California very soon.
This might be Paramount looking to develop their next big franchise in the shadow of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible, which is shooting two installments this year with writer/director Christopher McQuarrie spearheading those two blockbusters.
The next big step will be casting the main role of Simon Templar aka The Saint, a criminal/thief for hire.
In 2018, Guardians of The Galaxy actor Chris Pratt had been reportedly in the mix for the lead role according to Deadline.
Paramount Pictures is dancing with Chris Pratt to star in a relaunch of its action franchise The Saint. Sources cautioned this is early days, but that the hope is to build the film around the Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World franchise star. Lorenzo di Bonaventura is aboard to produce. Stay tuned.
However, Pratt’s name wasn’t mentioned in the latest reporting from Variety.
Considering Dexter’s working relationship with Taron Egerton and it’s expected he’ll be wrapping-up the Kingsman franchise with Kingsman 3 in the near future, there is a good chance that Taron is at least considered to play Simon.
I’d even suggest Richard Madden (Eternals, Game of Thrones) as well for the part, who co-starred in Rocketman with Taron.
I sort of remember the 1997 film but more it’s iconic theme than anything else, not unlike Mission: Impossible’s catchy theme song.
Based on the popular spy series, this film follows suave international thief Simon Templar (Val Kilmer), who is contracted by Russian oil magnate Ivan Tretiak (Rade Serbedzija) to steal a formula for cold fusion. So Templar, nicknamed “The Saint” because of his use of Roman Catholic saints as aliases, finds scientist Dr. Emma Russell (Elisabeth Shue), seduces her and steals the information.
However, because the formula was incomplete, Tretiak now wants to kill Templar and kidnap Russell.
SOURCE: VARIETY
