It seems like ages since we saw Jim Caviezel on our screens – he was last spotted as a man who lands on Earth during Viking times and helps battle the alien invader that arrives with him in Outlander – but now he’s snagged the lead in historical drama Savannah.
This one will see him fighting 100% fewer extraterrestrial nasties, but does see him paired up with the excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor for the tale of real-life 1900s aristocrat Ward Allen.
Talking to a local Georgia website, writer/director Annette Haywood-Carter described the basics: “It’s a story about this very eccentric, bigger-than-life hunter named Ward Allen and his friendship with a freed slave named Christmas Moultrie. This is the perfect movie for Savannah because it really showcases the city’s eccentric characters.”
Inspired by John Eugene Cay Jr’s book Duck, Dogs and Friends, the film will also feature Hal Holbrook, The West Wing’s Bradley Whitford, Love and Other Drugs’ Jaimie Alexander and, in what we can only assume will be a rare less comic role, 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer.
Now that she has her lead cast in place, Haywood-Carter will start cranking the cameras on February 14.