Actors Mel Gibson and Sean Penn are teaming up to star in a new film together, aptly named Professor and the Madman.
Advertisement
The film follows Sir James Murray (played by Gibson), who served as the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) for almost 40 years, and Dr. W. C. Minor (played by Penn), a deranged killer who for 20 years was one of the OED’s most reliable contributors.
Voltage Pictures, the company behind “The Hurt Locker” and “Dallas Buyers Club” is reportedly backing the film. After almost two decades, Mel Gibson is ready to bring the best-seller The Professor and the Madman to the big screen and has enlisted Sean Penn in the effort.
The Professor and the Mad Man follows the story of Professor James Murray, who in 1857 began compiling the OED, which is still to this day the definitive record of the English language.
According to editors at The Hollywood Reporter, Sean is now in talks to star alongside Mel, with the writer of the Australian’s 2006 directorial effort Apocalypto, Farhad Safinia set to direct. Penn will play Dr. W.C. Minor, who submitted more than 10,000 entries but also was institutionalized in an asylum for the criminally insane.
Advertisement
The script was originally penned by Todd Komarnicki and John Boorman with Safinia rewriting. It’ll also be the first film starring Gibson and Penn together. Gibson has spent the last few years quietly rehabbing his (obviously damaged) public image with roles in action films like The Expendables 3, Get the Gringo, Machete Kills and this month’s Blood Father.
