Mads Mikkelsen in talks for villain role in Doug Liman’s Chaos Walking

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

From Le Chiffre in CASINO ROYALE, Kaecilius in DOCTOR STRANGE, and, of course, Dr. Hannibal Lector in Hannibal, Mads Mikkelsen has shown that he's quite adept at bringing villains to life, and he may be returning to his evil ways for Doug Liman's post-apocalyptic thriller CHAOS WALKING.

Per THR, Mikkelsen is currently in negotiations to take on the role of the lead villain in Doug Liman's adaptation of Patrick Ness' YA series. Consisting of "The Knife of Never Letting Go," "The Ask and the Answer," and "Monsters of Men," Ness' series takes place in a dystopian world where all women have been killed by a virus and all of the remaining living creatures can hear each other's thoughts in a stream of images, words, and sounds called Noise. Knowing that they're hiding something from him, a young man (Tom Holland) is forced to flee his town with his loyal dog as his only companion. While out in the wilderness, the pair stumble across a mysterious sight, a girl (Daisy Ridley) who may be the key to unlocking the New World's many layered secrets.

Should Mads Mikkelsen's deal go through, the actor would play the "ruthless mayor of Prentisstown who is searching for the young man he once mentored and who is a religiously minded keeper of his own secrets and is planning to expand his reach." Production on CHAOS WALKING is expected to get underway later this summer in Montreal with Liman directing from a script by Charlie Kaufman (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND) and Jamie Linden (MONEY MONSTER).

A synopsis of "The Knife of Never Letting Go" via Amazon:

Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him — something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn't she killed by the germ like all the females on New World? Propelled by Todd's gritty narration, readers are in for a white-knuckle journey in which a boy on the cusp of manhood must unlearn everything he knows in order to figure out who he truly is.

Are we witnessing the birth of the next great YA movie franchise? It's hard to say as we've seen so many of them stumble, but with Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, and Mads Mikkelsen leading the way, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.