Norwegian superstar Aksel Hennie is on a roll after breaking out in the slick thriller Headhunters. He has just wrapped two new films, with the first being the 80s-set suspense thriller Pioneer starring Wes Bentley and Stephen Lang, while the second is The Last Knights with Morgan Freeman and Clive Owen. Now THR is reporting that the multi-talented Norwegian writer/director/actor is boarding his first Hollywood tentpole, joining Dwayne Johnson in Hercules.
The Headhunters star will be playing Tydeus, a faithful liege to Hercules, the son of Zeus. The character of Tydeus is described as an insane, double axe wielding warrior who, while sleeping, must be chained up at night in order to prevent unwanted destruction. Given the brilliant performance Hennie recently delivered in Headhunters, I can’t wait to see how the Norwegian lead interprets the role of the savage soldier.
In a recent MTV interview, The Rock also shared his excitement about playing the role of Hercules, describing the character as one of his childhood heroes and another dream come true. The Fast & Furious 6 star also mentioned that the development of his Hercules character has been on his mind for sometime now. He went on to provide some character detail describing his vision of the mighty warrior-prince as being “more dramatic and survived in barren lands and not necessarily slick in a way or anything like that.”
Brett Ratner helms the big budget feature, which is based on the graphic novel Hercules: The Thracian War by Steve Moore. The script was adapted for the screen by newcomer Ryan Condal, creator of the TV film The Sixth Gun and the film will be set in ancient Trace, a historical area of southwestern Europe, which now makes up parts of modern-day Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. Production on Hercules is slated to kick off at the end of April and will be shooting in Budapest, Hungary and Croatia. The joint MGM-Paramount epic tale is also set to hit theaters nationwide next summer on August 8th, 2014.
Are you a Headhunters fan? Looking forward to see Hennie in a blockbuster?