UPDATE: Deadline has confirmed that Anthony Hopkins and Evan Rachel Wood will star in HBO’s WESTWORLD for producers J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan. Nolan will direct from a script he wrote with Lisa Joy.
It has been a few years since we last heard about the remake of WESTWORLD from producer J.J. Abrams, but it looks like the project may be revving up again. Abrams has been eying the remake of Michael Crichton‘s science fiction western that starred Yul Brynner as an HBO mini-series and now his top casting picks have been revealed.
According to Film Divider, roles have been offered to Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, and James Marsden for the leads in the film. Hopkins would play Dr. Ford, the creator of Westworld and the robots that inhabit the amusement park. Much like Richard Attenborough‘s John Hammond from JURASSIC PARK, Ford’s creations go haywire and begin killing guests of the park. Wood would play Doloroes Abernathy, a farm girl who doesn’t realize she is a robot sex slave. Marsden would portray Teddy Flood, a Western cowboy who is also in love with Dolores.
The original WESTWORLD featured the guests trying to escape from a killer cowboy robot with the focus being on the human characters. This take seems to be more focused on the robots themselves and take a more human perspective. Hopefully this casting pans out as this would instantly become a must see series with such big names involved. WESTWORLD remains a cult classic and is ripe for the reboot treatment.