Someone give Casey Affleck a trumpet because he’ll be playing the angel Gabriel in director Alex Proyas’s upcoming Paradise Lost.
Variety is reporting that the actor is currently in negotiations for the film which is based on Milton’s epic 17th century poem about the war in heaven between the forces of the archangels Lucifer and Michael. Already in the cast are Bradley Cooper as Lucifer, Ben Walker as Michael and Djimon Hounsou as Abdiel, the angel of death. Variety is also reporting that Camilla Belle (10,000 BC) has been offered the role of Eve and Diego Boneta is up for the role of Adam.
Casey won’t be the first member of the Affleck clan to play a member of God’s heavenly host. Brother Ben notably played a fallen angel in Kevin Smith’s religious satire Dogma.
Although I had some skepticism about this project when it was first announced, each new piece of casting news gets me more curious and eager to see how it all works out. As an actor who has been methodically building up a really solid filmography, Affleck is a great addition to the cast. The question remains how good the script is though. It has gone through a number of revisions with the original draft by Byron Willinger and Philip de Blasi being rewritten by Stuart Hazeldine and then polished by Lawrence Kasdan and Ryan Condal,
The film is set to start production early next year.
