John Landis’ ‘Burke & Hare’ – Casting Changes (Allegedly?)
by Ben Bussey
We’ve had an interesting moral dilemna with this one. Many sites are happily reporting this story as confirmed – yet the source of it all is a Simon Pegg tweet which, so far as we can see, isn’t there anymore. We’re not suggesting that Pegg didn’t in fact say what he’s been quoted as saying, yet given the statement’s absence from his Twitter feed, we can’t help questioning its veracity. Did the Peggster say something he wasn’t supposed to? Can his announcement be accepted as official? Why the renouncement in the form of a deletion?
Well, after much chin-stroking, Marc and I came to the conclusion that as the story’s all over the place already, there’s no real harm in repeating it here, and in so doing as posting the ‘news,’ giving you the reader a tiny insight into how ‘scoops’ of this kind are broken, and allow you to draw your own conclusions.
And so – as many other sites have already reported, the recently ex-Doctor Who David Tennant, set to co-headline the new John Landis movie Burke & Hare with Pegg, is apparently off the film. And the elusive tweet that started it all apparently went as follows:
‘David Tennant had to drop out of B&H but by sheer glorious serendipity a legend of Middle Earth and Skull Island has come aboard. Welcome AS’
So that AS would of course be Andy Serkis, who it’s nice to see is carving out a respectable career for himself outside of the mo-cap roles he’s still most recognised for, having recently portrayed British punk legend Ian Dury in Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll, and a while back added some class to the lightweight but likeable horror comedy The Cottage. (Which is not to say he’s ditched the mo-cap suit, as he’s soon to be seen – so to speak – as Captain Haddock in Spielberg and Jackson’s Tintin.)
Still, even though I’m certain Serkis will do a great job, I must say (if this is correct) I’m sad Tennant’s out. His work on Doctor Who has more than demonstrated the depth of his charisma, and I’ve no doubt that would transfer brilliantly to movies. The idea of him collaborating with Simon Pegg was excting enough, but when you throw into the mix John Landis as director… man! As you can see from the above quote no reason for his departure has been given, though it may be of note that Tennant recently shot a TV pilot for NBC, Rex Is Not Your Lawyer.
But even if Tennant’s out (and it should be noted that, while there’s been no further confirmation, no-one’s denied this yet either) there’s still a wealth of talent involved – including supporting turns from John Cleese, Bill Bailey and, as much as this boggles the mind, Ronnie Corbett – so we’ve every reason to expect a damn good macabre black comedy, and if IMDB is to be believed we can expect it later this year.
That’s assuming this is for real. Which it may well be. But we don’t know for sure. Oh, the headaches… We’ll keep you updated as word becomes official.
Editor’s Note: 1/22/09 – As an update to this story it has now become official. The Hollywood Reporters “Heat Blog” reports Andy Serkis will indeed be joining the cast of Burke & Hare alongside Simon Pegg, Isla Fisher, and Tom Wilkinson.
