Born on December 19, 1963 to the late Khalil Hamis Mukungu and Habiba Umar in Naguru, Hassan and Hussein Khalil, are twins who took their stark similarities to the sports arena
Rege-Jean Page is walking in 007 s footsteps. No, theÂ
Bridgerton star hasn t been cast as James Bond yet but he s taking the lead role inÂ
The Saint, an adaptation of a 1960s U.K. spy series that once was a Bond-precursor for the lateÂ
Roger Moore.
The Hollywood Reporter says Page will co-produce and star as Simon Templar, a suave, wealthy man who moonlights as a master of disguise and expert thief who, in true Robin Hood fashion, usually steals from the wealthy to the benefit of the poor.
Moore s role in the 1960s series led to him play James Bond on the big screen in seven films, succeedingÂ
Robert Evans (
Chinatown,
Marathon Man) on board as producers. Evans died in 2019, but he will receiving a producer credit anyway.
The Saint Gets an Overhaul
Page is taking over the role from Chris Pine (
Wonder Woman), who took it over from Chris Pratt (
Guardians of the Galaxy). It’s unclear whether
Dexter Fletcher, the filmmaker behind
Rocketman and
Eddie the Eagle, is still attached to direct this movie, but it appears that the story has been significantly reworked.
Seth Grahame-Smith (
The LEGO Batman Movie,
Dark Shadows) was credited with writing a previous version of the screenplay, but his name is no longer attached to this project. Instead, the script is being written by
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The Saint focuses on a character named Simon Templar, who goes by the alias of The Saint, in a modern-day Robin Hood-style figure.
The character is known to leave a calling card at the scene of wherever he strikes, in the form of a stick man - which was used as the cover of the original books.
Back in the day: According to reports, Regé-Jean Page has landed his next major role in the reimagination of the 1997 film The Saint, which originally featured Val Kilmer (pictured)
Deadline claim the reboot will be a fresh take on the classic character.
Based on the long-running franchise of books and short stories by Leslie Charteris, the movie will see Page assume big screen leading man status as Simon Templar, the shadowy, globetrotting English English adventurer cum detective and a master-of-disguise, who s willing to skirt the law in order to take down all sorts of bad guys from corrupt politicians and greedy capitalists to mafiosos and Nazi thugs.
Charteris began writing the mystery series in the 1920s and continued to hatch potboilers for the next 40 years. Over that period,
The Saint spawned a slew of movies and a popular 60s British spy-fi thriller TV series starring the late, great Roger Moore. With his debonair wink and a smile, the thesp s stint as Templar proved irresistible to Bond producers, who famously tapped Moore to succeed Sean Connery as 007 in the 70s and 80s.