With principal photography ending last week on the final Harry Potter movies, all the young actors are now looking ahead at a life without the certainty of Hogwarts to back them up. Rupert Grint is already making headway with the likes of Wild Target, Emma Watson recently joined the cast of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, but what about Daniel Radcliffe?
Well for a long time he’s been booked in to head back to Broadway for his first musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and now it seems he’s planning to take the lead in a remake of All Quiet On The Western Front.
Erich Maria Remarque’s novel already became a Best Picture Oscar winner in 1930, and there was also a TV version in 1979. However it seems Radcliffe, who already went to fight in the First World War in the TV movie My Boy Jack, feels it’s time to give it another go around.
Variety reports that Radcliffe will play the lead role of Paul Baumer, an idealistic young German man who heads off to fight in the battlefields of France during the First World War, after being talked into enlisting by his teacher. Once there he inevitably discovers that war isn’t all its cracked up to be, and as those around him die, he also becomes increasingly aware of the moral uncertainties of the cause, ending up increasingly disillusioned.
There’s no director yet announced for the new version of the anti-war classic, although Ian Stokell and Lesley Paterson are on scripting duties. However they’ve got a bit of time to sort everything out, as the movie is unlikely to start shooting until 2012, once Radcliffe has completed his Broadway stint.