Variety is reporting that the creator of the TV series The Tudors, Michael Hirst, has been tapped to adapt Bernard Cornwell’s bestselling novel, Agincourt, for the big screen (and before people start getting confused, the book is called Azincourt in the UK, but got retitled Agincourt in America). The London based Independent FIlm Co. plans to make a $35 million film version of the book, wihch was published last year and has already sold over 200,000 copies in the UK.
Hirst also wrote the screenplay for 1998s Elizabeth, so he’s certainly got lots of medieval drama credentials and seems a good choice for the project.
Cornwell’s novel follows Nicholas Hook, an archer who fights alongside Henry V in the infamous 1415, St Crispin’s Day battle. The book strips away the romance of Shakespeare’s Henry V to present a more realistic depiction of rough, tough, medieval men at war.
At they’re hoping to start shooting the movie in Spring 2011, so we probably won’t be seeing it until late that year or possibly sometime in 2012.