Mickey Rourke Confirmed to Play Villain in WAR OF THE GODS
As we reported last month, Mickey Rourke was in negotiations to play the villain in Relativity Media's War of the Gods, which follows a young warrior Theseus who leads his men into battle with the immortal Greek gods to defeat evil and the powerful elder gods of the Titans in order to save mankind.
Now we can confirm that Rourke has been cast opposite Henry Cavill (The Tudors), who is playing Theseus, Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) has been cast as Phaedra, an oracle priestess who must join Theseus on his quest to prevent the cataclysmic war from erupting. Rourke will play the part of King Hyperion, the ruler of Ancient Greece who does battle with the divines.
Mickey Rourke is cashing in on the villain game, as he'll also be playing nemesis to Tony Stark, playing Whiplash in Iron Man 2 this year.
Tarsem Singh (The Fall, The Cell) will direct War of the Gods, which was formerly titled Dawn of War. The original screenplay was written by Charley and Vlas Parlapanides, while the most recent draft of the script was penned by Jason Keller. Production on War of the Gods is set to start in April with Universal handling the release.
It's a little hard to gauge the current slate of Greek mythology movies. Percy Jackson has made made $70M more than its budget thanks to the foreign market. It has critics evenly split, but the fans of the books are crying bloody murder. Clash of the Titans on the other hand, not due till April, has a lot of buzz. The studio has plenty of faith in the project, having delayed the release to hastily convert the entire movie into 3D, hoping to cash in on the 3D success of Avatar, and the star of both films, Sam Worthington. It's a safe bet, but ya never now how it'll go.
In terms of box-office performance, will War of the Gods be the Surfs Up to Happy Feet? Or will it be the Happy Feet to March of the Penguins?