PALIN MITENK BLOG

By Paul Thompson

All grown up: Daniel Radcliffe is about to move on from Harry Potter and make a grown-up horror film


Daniel Radcliffe's future looks black as he seeks out his next role after completing work on the Harry Potter films.

He is to star in a ghost story based on the best selling book The Woman In Black.

The 20-year-old actor said he was ‘incredibly excited’ to land the starring role in the gothic thriller which has also been a hugely successful London stage play.

When he begins filming in October it will be his first major role since completing work on the seventh and final film in the Harry Potter series.

Radcliffe and his co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint filmed the final scenes for Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows which will be released in 2011.

Woman In Black has been adapted for the big screen by Jonathan Ross's screenwriter wife Jane Goldman, who won such great plaudits for her work on recent hit Kick-Ass.

Radcliffe will play young lawyer Arthur Kipps, who is sent to an old and isolated house to sort out a recently deceased client’s papers.

While there, he starts to uncover a series of tragic secrets and discovers that the local village is held hostage by the ghost of a scorned woman.


Award winning: Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe collect the Family Film award for Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince during the 2010 National Movie Awards at the Royal Festival Hall, London


Susan Hill's 1993 novel The Woman In Black, became an instant best seller.

A London stage version has been playing since 1989 and it also inspired a TV version which stared Adrian Rawlins, who plays Radcliffe's onscreen father in the Harry Potter films.

The latest version is being directed by James Watkins who made the successful horror film Eden Lake.

Radcliffe said he was looking forward to beginning work on the film.

‘It is thrilling to be working with James Watkins. From his brilliant work on Eden Lake and also having met him and heard his vision for the film, I know he will make a fantastic film,’ he said.

‘Jane Goldman's script is beautifully written - both tender and terrifying in equal measure.’

Watkins said he was thrilled Radcliffe had agreed to play the part of Kipps.

‘When I met Dan, it was quite uncanny how closely our thoughts on the story mirrored each other,’ he said.



The Woman In Black: Robert Demerger and Timothy Watson toured the UK in 2005 with the stage show


‘I can’t wait to get down to work with him to fashion a compelling character and a classy ghost story that tugs at the heart and chills to the bone.’

The film is being made by Hammer Films, the British company most famous for dozens of horror films in the 1960s and 1970s often starring Christopher Lee.

The studio went out of business in the 1980s and was taken over by Dutch producer John De Mol, the creator of The Big Brother reality show.

Woman In Black is likely to be released in the summer of 2011 after the last Potter film.

The film will be the first written solely by 40 year old Goldman.

She has been co-writer of three previous films, including Kick Ass which was released earlier this year and starred Nicholas Cage as a superhero.

The film caused controversy because of the foul language used by one of the child characters.

Goldman, a mother of three, was also co-writer on the Robert De Niro adventure film Stardust and is co-writer on the next instalment in the X-Men series.


source: dailymail