Anthony Hopkins signs on to Arabian Nights

One of our favourite Sirs, Sir Anthony Hopkins, has been recruited to star in Chuck Russell’s Arabian Nights .

Heat Vision report that Hopkins is in the last stages of negotiations to play the villain in the sandy action adventure. Russell's last directorial outing was the similarly sandy The Scorpion King .

The Brit star would portray antagonist Pharotu, a character that Heat Vision describe as “an evil sorcerer who killed Sinbad’s love, a mermaid, and is looking to amass more magic for himself”. Works for us!

Hopkins would join Liam Hemsworth on the film. Hemsworth – the brother of Chris, currently making headlines as Thor – plays a young commander who joins Sinbad, Ali Baba and the genie from the lamp after his king is murdered. Together, they embark on a mission to rescue Queen Scheherazade.

Seventy-three-year-old Hopkins is also currently appearing opposite Liam’s brother Chris in Thor as Odin, and is set to appear as a rebel exorcist (awesome) in The Rite .

Think Hopkins was born to play villains? Drop us a comment…

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.