Hugh Bonneville, better known as Downton Abbey's Earl of Grantham, has just landed a rare leading man role in a big screen movie. Screen Daily reports that Bonneville will play detective Roy Grace in Dead Simple, an adaptation of one of Peter James' crime books based on the popular Brighton-based hero. The ticking clock thriller finds Grace investigating four gruesome murders linked to a groom who has been buried alive somewhere on the eve of his wedding day. It's the fifth book in the Grace series but one that could potentially kick-start a franchise about the quirky detective who is solving murders whilst trying to overcome the pain of losing his wife. James has become a huge best-selling author in the UK where he is outselling Jeffrey Deaver and James Patterson right now, but he has a background in film after working as a film producer and financier for years (he worked on Al Pacino's Merchant of Venice and even Cronenberg's 1975 movie Shivers) and is looking to get back into the game via his novel, producing this version after being frustrated by the likes of Roman Polanski and countless British TV networks who have pitched their ideas of adaptations. James says;
The reason the books have been successful is that they get away from the typical plodding police procedural, that Agatha Christie kind of thing where you start with the body in the library, said James. My books are thrillers although they have police procedure in them. British television just didnt seem to get it.
Swiss TV writer Daniel Eckhart is working on the screenplay whilst James and co-producer James Simpson (an entertainment lawyer) are on the hunt for financing and will be at the Berlin Film Festival. A director will be soon be sought to help strengthen the film package to investors which already looks promising given Bonneville's rising stock internationally thanks to Downtown Abbey. He has appeared in a few films before, notably in Notting Hill and in Iris, but this is setup to be his biggest to date.