On HBO’s Watchmen, Jeremy Irons played a guy who was so full of himself that he believed he was the only person on the planet who could avert a global catastrophe. He had done that by dropping a squid on Manhattan, which didn’t end up being a super popular move, but now he’s taking on another role that leaves him as one of the few people entrusted with the safety of mankind. Is it arrogance or is he just good at playing guys who seem good at taking control of dangerous situations? Either way, The Hollywood Reporter says he’s going to star in director Christian Schwochow’s Munich, an adaptation of Robert Harris’ book of the same name for Netflix, which concerns a fateful meeting in 1938 in which representatives from England and Germany met to see if they could avert World War II.
Irons will play British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, with George McKay playing another English guy and Jannis Niehwöhner (from Netflix’s Mute) playing German diplomat Paul von Hartmann. THR bills the story as a “spy thriller,” but it sounds more like it concerns dramatic backroom conversations than cloaks and daggers—which is fine, even if Jeremy Irons doing parkour and getting into shootouts would also be fine.
Munich will also feature Liv Lisa Fries, Erin Doherty, Sandra Hüller, August Diehl, Robert Bathurst, and Marc Limpach. You’ll also get to see Martin Wuttke, the actor who played Hitler in Inglourious Basterds, reprising that role for Munich. That’s probably a good job if you can get it, but it’s also… probably not a good job. But hey, at least you could argue that this takes place in the Tarantino universe now.