Given the amount of roles he’s being offered, it’s increasingly feeling like Alex Pettyfer will be appearing in half the teen book-based franchise films to arrive in the next few years. His latest possible job? The lead in Warner Bros. adaptation of Joseph Delaney’s The Wardstone Chronicles.
Known across the pond as The Last Apprentice, Delaney’s seven-and-counting book series follows Thomas J Ward, who is blessed (or cursed, depending on your outlook) with the ability to see and sense the things that lurk in the dark, which most humans can’t. While that probably makes him brilliant at finding lost socks, he’s actually apprenticed to train as a “Spook” so he can deal with the various nasty creatures and old gods that live on the edges of our awareness.
Right now, it’s still so much rumour, with everything put down to Vulture’s sources and insiders. But it comes with extra casting nuggets – Jeff Bridges and Winter’s Bone star Jennifer Lawrence have also reportedly been offered the role of Ward’s mentor and a witch respectively. Russian director Sergey Bodrov is on to direct what Warners is likely hoping will help fill the Potter-shaped gap in its schedules.
But what does this all mean for the hopes and dreams those who want Pettyfer to star in Mortal Instruments, another set of books about people who can see strange creatures? Looks like those hopes might just be dashed as Pettyfer’s apparently learning more towards the Wardstone Chronicles, despite Screen Gems hoping to get him to work with Legion director Scott Stewart. That sound you hear is the Mortal Instruments brigade – who have championed Pettyfer as studly tattooed demon hunter Jace Wayland – firing up their petitions...