Anthony Hopkins will be the first to admit that he’s cashing in on his persona as a celebrated actor to get some decent paychecks in his golden years. So we can’t really bust his balls too hard about his latest deal – Hopkins has signed on to star as a psychic doctor working with the FBI to track down a serial killer in the crime-thriller SOLACE. (He’s chasing a serial killer, which is so totally crazy because he’s famous for playing a serial killer OMG whatta coincidence!!)
SOLACE is one of those scripts that has been bouncing around Hollywood forever. Back in the early 2000s, New Line even considered rewriting SOLACE as a sequel to SEVEN, with the Morgan Freeman character suddenly developing the aforementioned psychic abilities. (I swear this is a true story.) Cooler heads prevailed but New Line never cooled on the script itself. They brought on James Vanderbilt (ZODIAC) to pen a new draft and then had Peter Morgan (FROST/NIXON, HEREAFTER) do a polish.
If the material seems…below an actor of Mr. Hopkins caliber, think back to what I was saying before. Not only has Hopkins never shied away from the paycheck role, he’s been taking those roles almost exclusively for the past 10 years. I mean, what was the last really good movie he was in? 1999’s TITUS? That might even be a stretch. I think you’d have to go all the way back to NIXON in 1995. Since then we’ve gotten crap (BAD COMPANY, FRACTURE, INSTINCT) and some well-intentioned crap (ALL THE KING’S MEN, AMISTAD, MEET JOE BLACK) and a whole crapload of mediocre (THOR, THE RITE, ALEXANDER, BEOWULF).
I’d love to see a late-career renaissance from Hopkins who, despite his penchant for selling out, always brings some well-needed gravitas to his films. But will SOLACE be that movie? So far no director is attached but a psychic serial killer movie doesn’t seem to be a great start.
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