He’ll be swaggering across our screens as the villainous pirate Blackbeard in this summer’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and now it looks like Ian McShane is after the throne as he’s been cast as the king in Jack the Giant Killer.
McShane will play the ruler of the human nation that threatens trouble when its giant-sized neighbours kidnap the princess (Eleanor Tomlinson). The job falls to farm boy Jack (Nicholas Hoult) to get her back.
It’s not yet known if the king (named Brahmwell, according to the Heat Vision blog) will be a hero or a villain, but given that his chief adviser (Stanley Tucci) is the big bad of the piece and the monarch will swing between A) worrying for his daughter’s safety and B) getting annoyed that she’ll fall for a humble farm worker, it’s safe to say he won’t be in the best mood for most of the movie.
Ewan McGregor is aboard playing a giant-killing expert who leads his majesty’s guards, while Bill Nighy and John Kassier are teaming up to play the two heads of the giants’ leader.
Bryan Singer is busy shooting Jack the Giant Killer now and the movie will be out next year.