More News on Les Miserables Film

As previously blogged, it now looks pretty certain that The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper will be helming Cameron Mackintosh’s film version of Les Miserables. The word is that he will sign on the dotted line in a few weeks time and then start work with writer Bill Nicholson to complete the screenplay to start filming early next year,

A casting director will then be brought in to find the right actors to play the main leads of heroic Jean Valjean and his pursuer Inspector Javert.

In the Daily Mail today it has been reported that two of the actors being considered by film executives involved in pre-production are Robert Downey Jr and Sean Penn.  They are both fine actors, but as Jean Valjean is described in Victor Hugo’s tome  as “a bear of a man” and  needs to have a fabulous voice, Downey Jr and Penn are not obvious choices as they are not renowned for their singing voices or height. Maybe it’s an April Fool’s  joke – I hope so!

Mackintosh wants to screen-test opera singer Alfie Boe for the lead role.  He played Valjean at the Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert and is due to join the show at the Queen’s Theatre in June.  If Boe were cast as Valjean then the producers would have to compensate by casting major names to play the other characters which would hopefully mean someone like Hugh Jackman being cast as Javert. I saw in Oklahoma! at the National Theatre and the Boy from Oz on Broadway and he has everything necessary and more for the role.