Two-time Academy Award nominee Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond, In America) has now joined the cast of the upcoming adaptation of Milton’s famous epic poem, Paradise Lost, Variety report.
We don’t get to see Hounsou on the big screen that frequently, but he is an absolutely terrific actor, and I can’t wait to see him portraying the character of Abdiel, the angel of death.
Though I can’t say that I’ve read Milton’s poem in its entirety, and the parts I have read I did so further back than I can remember, it is of course well known for its epic nature, both in length and subject matter, and this is a project that’s becoming more and more promising with each bit of information we get from it.
“Synopsis: Lucifer and Michael, God’s greatest archangels, share the bond of extraordinary friendship until God produces his greatest creation: Man. Unable to remain subservient to God if it means bowing down to humanity, Lucifer begins his dark descent and is cast out – only to plot his revenge.”
Bradley Cooper, who’s seeing his star soar of late, is attached to take the role of Lucifer, which I’m also really looking forward to seeing, and Benjamin Walker will be playing the role of Michael. Alex Proyas will be taking the helm for this project.
We got our first look at some concept art of Cooper as Lucifer last month coming out of Comic-Con, and it looked pretty damn awesome. Proyas will be using motion capture to help bring the story to life, and things are definitely looking good so far. I’ll be really interested to see our first proper look at the angels from head to toe, to see exactly how they’ll be depicted.
Playing Abdiel, the angel of death, Hounsou’s main part in the original poem comes in the centre of the poem’s twelve books, so in theory he’ll have an awesome part to look forward to half-way through the film. Whilst I can’t remember much about Abdiel, I think he stays on heaven’s side and battles in the war against the defecting angels, which sounds like a role perfect for Hounsou.
He was brilliant alongside Cam Gigandet, Sean Faris, and Amber Heard a few years back in Never Back Down, and was of course exceptional opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe in Blood Diamond and Gladiator, respectively. Though he has been nominated twice at the Oscars, it really isn’t often that we get to see Hounsou in many films, and even less frequent in big films like this, so his attachment to Paradise Lost is definitely good news in my books. No firm release date has been scheduled yet, but we probably have to wait until 2013 to see this finalised. But from the look and sound of things so far, it will be worth it.
