Chris Evans Hyding Out for Lionsgate’s Jekyll?
Steve Barton
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The classic monsters continue to march their way to theaters, but this one isn’t part of Universal’s new combined universe for them. Deadline is reporting that Chris Evans might be diversifying from his Captain America persona to play the lead role of Tom Jackman in Jekyll, a feature that Lionsgate is developing from the 2007 BBC One series.
Ellen DeGeneres and Jeff Kleeman are producing through their A Very Good Production banner and the team of Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry have written a script based on the Steven Moffatt-scripted six-episode miniseries.
Bagarozzi and Mondry also teamed on the Shane Black-directed The Nice Guys and Doc Savage, as well as the remake of Death Note. No director has been announced yet.
This creates a potential collision course between projects sourced from the Robert Louis Stevenson public domain novel about the doctor with a split personality. Universal’s classic monsters franchises set Russell Crowe to play the dual personality Jekyll & Hyde, first in The Mummy opposite Tom Cruise and presumably as a standalone in a later film.
The BBC miniseries wasn’t a straight adaptation of the Stevenson novella; rather, the litery classic was a jumping off point for a sequel. In the miniseries, James Nesbitt played Jackman, a modern-day descent of Jekyll who is beginning to exhibit the trademark split personality. The father and husband abandons his family, without explaining why, and lives in a fortified basement with a psychiatric nurse as his ally. When they strap the doctor to a metal chair, she watches him transform into an alter ego who rages, shows heightened strength and speed, and can be a charming flirtatious scoundrel as well. The two personalities try to coexist, even though one doesn’t remember what the other does while in control of the body. They use a micro cassette to leave messages for each other. Unable to stay away from the family he left behind for their own safety, he visits his wife, Hyde assumes control and learns about them, and things grow very complicated.
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