Update: The search continues as Farrell has decided to pass for those pesky old scheduling reasons, according to Deadline. Dobkin and co really aren't having much luck with this...
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Like the many wannabe warriors who had trouble pulling Excalibur from the stone, Warner Bros. and Arthur And Lancelot writer-director David Dobkin hit a snag back in December, when development on the film landed in limbo over budget issues. The film needed a hero to come riding to the rescue and it might just have found one in Colin Farrell.
You’ll recall that Dobkin’s concept, which follows the earlier years of Arthur and his loyal-except-for-the-Guinevere-thing-that-time best mate, had been set up with Game Of Thrones’ Kit Harington and The Killing’s Joel Kinnaman in the lead roles. But the studio got cold feet over the expanding budget, and worried that two largely unknown actors – even if their stars are on the rise with their shows and Kinnaman now confirmed for **Robocop – wouldn’t be enough to win over audiences.
So plans to shoot in January were halted until the issues could be worked out. Now, with Farrell in talks, the nervy executives have a name to splash across the posters. There’s no word when things will get back on track, but if Farrell signs on, we’d expect the film to still shoot this year. The script may also need some tweaking, since we doubt the characters will be quite as young. Unless he’s playing Merlin, of course. Unlikely. But possible…
Farrell will next be seen in Total Recall (out here August 22) and Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths.