Paramount’s new take on the iconic British master thief The Saint is continuing to move forward. With Chris Pine currently in talks to play Simon Templar, The Saint himself.
Who Is The Saint?
Simon Templar, known more commonly by his alias The Saint, is a master thief, and an amateur detective. A Robin Hood-esque character who steals from the wealthy and corrupt and gives the money to those in need. The character debuted in novel form in Meet The Tiger in 1928. Since then Simon Templar has pulled off numerous capers and adventures in books, comic strips, radio, television and even film. To most audiences The Saint is best known from the television series starring Roger Moore, which ran from 1961 to 1969. Or the 1997 film starring Val Kilmer, directed by Phillip Noyce. Hot off the success of Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games.
Paramount’s ‘The Saint’
Despite enjoying decently iconic status, Roger Moore got offered the part of James Bond based off his popularity as The Saint, The Saint has remained fairly dormant since the Val Kilmer film. Only seeing a few unsuccessful attempts to revive the character on television. Paramount announced that a new film was in early development in 2016. In February of 2020 Variety announced that Dexter Fletcher, hot off the success of Rocketman, had signed on to direct. Since Fletcher is also in talks to helm Renfield for Universal and Sherlock Holmes 3 for Warner it is unclear how much of a priority The Saint is. The script is written by Seth Grahame-Smith, a novelist turn screenwriter. Known primarily for the original novels of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Grahame-Smith also wrote The LEGO Batman Movie.
Casting The Saint
Simon Templar is a very classy spy type character. Smooth, suave, intelligent and charismatic. Any actor taking on the role needs to be able to take on numerous aliases as The Saint has many identities and aliases he uses for his work. Roger Moore fit this description in the 60s and Val Kilmer fit this in 97. Originally Chris Pratt was in talks to play the character, but like many Chris Pratt roles Pratt seemingly lost interests. Now Variety is reporting that Chris Pine is in talks to play The Saint. Apparently he is a front runner for the role, since Paramount already has a good working relationship with him from their Star Trek series.
Chris Pine Would Be Perfect As The Saint.
Chris Pine is one of the more underrated Hollywood leading men of the last couple decades. He enjoyed the Tony Scott treatment in the high speed film Unstoppable. He shined as Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek reboot films. He played great support as Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman and while he got to play Jack Ryan he only got to do so is one film. Pine is a suave leading man with a bit of a hard edge and a softer romantic quality. All things which make severely untapped potential to lead a franchise all his own. Pine could easily hold his own when compared to Roger Moore or Val Kilmer. Especially how wild the film will presumably be with Fletcher directing and Graham-Smith writing. With the pandemic on all physical film development has stalled. So it is unclear when the film’s pre-prediction will pick up. We will keep you up to date with new developments as they break.
