Natalie Dormer will be joining Mel Gibson and Sean Penn in a film about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, based on the book by Simon Winchester.
How interesting can a book about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary be?
Well apparently quite a bit, especially after reading the synopsis of Winchester’s best-selling book as per Amazon below:
The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary — and literary history. The compilation of the OED began in 1857, it was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.
This sounds like it has the potential to be an intriguing drama, with Farhad Safinia (who wrote Apocalypto for Mel Gibson) making his directorial debut.
Gibson will be playing Professor James Murray, the man who started the project to Penn’s Dr. W. C. Minor, the insane asylum patient who contributed thousands of entries to the dictionary.
Natalie Dormer is set to star as a widow whose husband was killed by Penn’s character.
Dormer recently appeared in the lacklustre horror film The Forest while Mel Gibson headlined the action-thriller Blood Father.
Sean Penn (like Gibson) has been quiet over the last few years with his sole appearance in 2016 coming in the Angry Birds movie in a voice role, so it will be good to see these two actors star together in what could potentially be an excellent film.
The Professor and the Madman is currently in production and has no release date set.
Source: THR
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