David Tennant is joining the previously announced Simon Pegg in John Landis’s dark comedy Burke And Hare.
The pair will portray two murderers who sold their victims bodies to a private anatomy lecturer whose students were drawn from Edinburgh Medical College. Over the space of 1824, the two supplied 16 bodies to a Dr. Robert Knox before being caught when some of Knox’s students recognized one of the victims. The fate of the two I’ll leave unspoken so as not to spoil the film, though Knox was never charged in connection with the grisly murders. The script is from Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcrof, the scripters behind the 2007 British hit comedy St. Trinian’s and its upcoming sequel, St. Trinian’s: The Legend Of Fritton’s Gold.
Even if it weren’t a rather lite news week, the idea that Landis is getting back behind the camera for a new feature film would definitely be something to write about. Landis had not had much luck with his last few features- The Stupids (1996), Blues Brothers (1998) and the very little seen Susan’s Plan (1998). In the 11 years since then, he has done some television work, the documentary Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project and tried to get a film adaption of the off-Broadway musical Batboy off the ground.
And Landis couldn’t ask for two better actors for the film. Both Pegg and Tennant have excellent comedy chops. And both are perhaps the two most recognizable British actors to most Americans right now thanks to Pegg’s comedy films and Tennant’s popular run on science-fiction perennial Doctor Who. This is definitely going to be one project we follow as it goes before the camera early next year.
Via Bloody Disgusting.
