Mr. Bean’s Holiday star Rowan Atkinson is set to reunite with his Johnny English director Peter Howitt for a version of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.
“Holiday” has made $157 million overseas but won’t open in the U.S. until Aug. 31.
The $30 million “Copperfield” project is being lined up to shoot in early 2008. Howitt and his producing partner Richard Johns are making the film through their production company Flaming Pie Films.
In “Copperfield,” Atkinson will play Mr. Micawber, Copperfield’s landlord and one of Dickens’ most famous comic characters, eternally and irrationally optimistic as he slides toward financial ruin.
Micawber was played by W.C. Fields in George Cukor’s 1935 movie. That film was the last big screen adaptation of the novel, although it has been made numerous times since for TV.
