It’s exceedingly difficult to imagine that any sound-minded person has ever uttered a sentence along the lines of, “That Charlie Hunnam guy, he’s like a modern day Steve McQueen.” He might be a good-looking blonde on a motorcycle, but after nearly two decades in the business, the Sons Of Anarchy star is still far from being the exemplar of cool. Still, Deadline is reporting that he’ll be stepping into McQueen’s Golden Globe-nominated role as real-life Devil’s Island escapee Henri “Papillon” Charrière in the remake of Franklin J. Schaffner 1973 classic, Papillon.
Joining him in penal colony anguish will likely be Rami Malek as his less-cool counterfeiter prison buddy, which is actually some pretty decent casting. Dustin Hoffman played Louis Dega 43 years ago, and one could make a substantive argument that Malek is on his way to filling the modern-day Hoffman niche. Malek’s already stacked up a pile of impressive credits—including parts in HBO’s The Pacific and Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master—before recently garnering critical acclaim for his lead performance as a disaffected computer hacker on USA’s Mr. Robot. (It’s not beyond the realm of imagination to picture Hoffman having played Elliot Alderson during the upward trajectory of his career.)
The 1930s period island prison drama will be directed by Michael Noer (Northwest) from a script by Aaron Guzikowski (Prisoners). Papillon is scheduled to begin shooting in September.