According to The Hollywood Reporter, Natalie Dormer (“Game of Thrones,” The Hunger Games series) is set to co-star with Mel Gibson and Sean Penn in Icon Productions‘ adaptation of Simon Winchester’s best-seller The Professor and the Madman. She will play the widow of a man killed by Penn’s character.
The film is based on the 1998 book, the true story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary — a tale that delves into madness, genius and two obsessive men who changed the course of literary history. Gibson will play Professor James Murray, who in 1857 set about compiling the OED, one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. Penn will play Dr. W. C. Minor, who submitted more than 10,000 entries but was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.
Screenwriter Farhad Safinia (Apocalypto) will make his feature directing debut on The Professor and the Madman after co-writing the screenplay with John Boorman and Todd Komarnicki. Gibson and Bruce Davey will produce.
(Photo Credit: WENN.com)
