You may remember Paul Bettany playing a doctor who wished he was working on evolution in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Well, now he's going to get his chance to spend more time on the Galapagos with the news that he will play Charles Darwin in Creation, with his missus, Jennifer Connelly, as his on-screen wife. Now's that's synergy!
The story will follow the young Darwin as he embarks on the formulation of his theory, and finds himself torn between "his growing belief in a world where God has no place*" and his deeply religious wife, Emma. We smell a controversy! The film's based on Annie's Box, a book by Randal Keynes (Darwin's great-great-grandson) about the effect that the death of Darwin's eldest daughter at age 10 had on him, so expect family as well as biology-based drama in there.
Jon Amiel's directing, which will allow him to exercise the costume drama muscles he developed on The Tudors recently and hopefully the deft touch he showed on The Man Who Knew Too Little rather than the touch he showed on **The Core. **The script's been adapted by John Collee (who wrote Master and Commander, fact fans) and the film will also have a rather talented supporting cast, in the shape of Jeremy Northam, Toby Jones and Benedict Cumberbatch.
*At age 40, Darwin abandoned Christianity, but apparently did not deny the existence of God and described himself as agnostic. Try to keep the talkback civil.