It would of course be far too easy to launch this news story – about casting for the adaptation of Susan Cooper’s time-travelling novel The Dark Is Rising – by making note of the fact that Christopher Eccleston should know a thing or two about time travel. Even if he did spend only one year as Dr Who.
Still, putting the leather jacket and universe-jaunting police box behind him, Eccleston has been cropping up all over the place – with a guest-starring role on hit US telly drama Heroes one of his more recent jobs.
And now he has indeed been cast in 20th Century’s Fox’s new fantasy epic, which will also star Jonathan Jackson, last seen asking himself how he’d got himself into in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.
It’s a pretty standard plot – a young man wondering if he’ll ever grow up to be special discovers that he has a destiny. Which also means he’s the last of a very select group of warriors who can flit back and forth through time to battle an ancient evil.
Director David L Cunningham has just kicked off shooting in Romania, with Ian McShane, Frances Conroy and Alexander Ludwig also appearing on the cast roster.
