Charlie Hunnam may have had to step away from the lead role in Fifty Shades Of Grey, however he’s now being lined up for another major movie, with Deadline reporting he’s the top choice for the title role in Guy Ritchie’s Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur.
Variety adds that Elizabeth Olsen is the frontrunner for the female lead. Idris Elba is already onboard as the knight Bedivere.
Joby Harold (Edge of Tomorrow) wrote the script, which is the first part of a planned six-movie franchise, which presumably will concentrate on different knights surrounding Arthur with each film. There’s still no news on the exact plot and direction the first movie will take.
Warner Bros. has had been trying to make an Arthurian movie for years. Indeed Ritchie was previously attached to a completely different King Arthur movie, which was written by John Hodge (Trainspotting). Another project, Arthur & Lancelot, even got to the point where Kit Harington (Game of Thrones) and Joel Kinnaman (The Killing) had been hired for the lead roles and the sets were ready to be built. However the studio backed out just a few weeks before production was due to begin. Hopefully they won’t get cold feet with this version.
For the past few months Guy Ritchie has been hard at work on the film version of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which is due in cinemas this winter. However he’s also got a King Arthur movie percolating away, which already has a July 2016 release date set.