{"id":311686,"date":"2025-11-28T05:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T05:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/311686\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T05:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T05:11:07","slug":"benedict-cumberbatch-planning-to-adapt-novel-rogue-male-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/311686\/","title":{"rendered":"Benedict Cumberbatch Planning To Adapt Novel ‘Rogue Male’ In 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBenedict Cumberbatch<\/a> has confirmed that he remains committed to adapting Rogue Male<\/a>, the classic British novel that he says inspired Ian Fleming to write James Bond.<\/p>\n

\n\tCumberbatch and his production company SunnyMarch announced in 2016 that they planned to adapt Geoffrey Household\u2019s book, but the feature film has yet to get off the ground. <\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking on the SmartLess podcast, hosted by Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman, and Will Arnett, Cumberbatch said he hoped to slate the shoot for 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe warned, however, that \u201cthere are other huge commitments involving cloaks floating about,\u201d which appeared to be confirmation that he is reprising his role as Doctor Strange<\/a> in the Marvel<\/a> Cinematic Universe.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe haven\u2019t got a filming date yet, but it\u2019s something we\u2019re trying to slate for next year,\u201d Cumberbatch said. \u201cWe will make it, definitely.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tPublished in 1939, Rogue Male follows an unnamed English sportsman who attempts to assassinate a European dictator, strongly implied to be Adolf Hitler. He is caught, tortured and left for dead, but escapes back to England, where he hides out in the countryside with enemy agents and police in pursuit.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s the original fugitive novel and a huge inspiration for Ian Fleming for Bond,\u201d Cumberbatch continued. \u201cWhen we first sat down to talk about this, [we thought] is this a bit of a guy\u2019s film? <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe longer we were exploring the themes of it and the motivation behind the guy\u2019s actions, and the outcome, and how he\u2019s turned on by his own side, as well as the side he\u2019s tried to take down, it\u2019s fascinating how it plays into the political spectrum of what\u2019s going on in the world right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the project was first announced, Michael Lesslie (Macbeth, Assassin\u2019s Creed) was hired to write the screenplay. It was set up at Fox Searchlight, and Cumberbatch was slated to star.<\/p>\n

\n\tPeter O\u2019Toole appeared in a BBC adaptation of Rogue Male made for television in 1977. Twentieth Century Fox adapted the novel in 1940 as Man Hunt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benedict Cumberbatch has confirmed that he remains committed to adapting Rogue Male, the classic British novel that he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[14191,49,48,361,14192,75,3078,139143],"class_list":["post-311686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-benedict-cumberbatch","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-doctor-strange","tag-entertainment","tag-marvel","tag-rogue-male"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}