Rowan Atkinson is kicking much ass overseas with his latest Bean movie Mr. Bean’s Holiday, which will be released this August here in the States, but has already earned $157 million in foreign markets. However, this ain’t about Bean, this is about Atkinson’s next role which will be in director Peter Howitt’s version of Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield.”
Truthfully, I want to see Atkinson in a dramatic role with no comedic elements, much like how Ricky Gervais pulled the same move for an episode of “Alias” and nailed it. I think there is a side to Atkinson we haven’t quite seen yet and hopefully will some day.
Howitt co-wrote Copperfield with Douglas McFerran and is expected to begin filming in early 2008. Atkinson will play Mr. Micawber, Copperfield’s landlord and one of Dickens’ most famous comic characters, eternally and irrationally optimistic as he slides toward financial ruin.
“This is a very fresh adaptation of the novel, not the chocolate-boxy, stolid version of Dickens that we are used to,” Howitt’s producing partner Richard Johns said. “It won’t be mannered or reverential. With Dickens, filmmakers have been trapped in this place where you have caricatured characters, but Peter wants to deal with them like real people.”
Howitt directed Atkinson in the 2003 flop Johnny English.
