Simon Pegg has just announced via Twitter that former Dr. Who David Tennant has dropped out of the new John Landis film Burke and Hare, about the famous 19th century graverobbers. In his place: Andy Serkis.
Says Pegg’s tweet: David Tennant had to drop out of B&H but by sheer glorious serendipity a legend of Middle Earth and Skull Island has come aboard. Welcome AS
Pegg will be playing Burke and Serkis will be Hare; the duo were famous for digging up corpses from cemeteries and selling them to medical schools, but once the supply ran out they took corpse-generating into their own hands. I’m assuming with Landis and this cast we’re looking at a fairly comedic view of the proceedings, which is fine since Burke and Hare were kind of bumbling fools (or at least have been popularly portrayed as such).
John Cleese also stars. As of now the film is set for a 2010 release.