Having been heavily linked to a certain Martini drinking spy since his Bridgerton breakout, Regé-Jean Page has instead opted to become The Saint‘s Simon Templar in Paramount’s reworking of the classic ’60s television show.
Page has been busy filling his schedule since the announcement that he wouldn’t be returning for season 2 of Netflix’s buzzy hit series, signing on for the Russo brothers The Gray Man and blockbuster fantasy Dungeons & Dragons, and now he has slipped into a pair of suave shoes once famously worn by Roger Moore, but it’s Simon Templar’s suit rather than a Bond tuxedo that he will be adorning for The Saint.
According to Collider Page will star in and executive produce the reboot, which will be written by British TV stalwart Kwame Kwei-Armah (Casualty, Holby City). It will be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Brad Krevoy, and Robert Evans.
Based on novels written by Leslie Charteris in the 1920s, the TV adaptation of The Saint ran between 1962 and 1969, and starred Roger Moore as Simon Templar, a kind-of Robin Hood spy who robbed from the criminally rich and gave to the poor and deserving. Val Kilmer appeared in a big-budget adaptation directed by Dead Calm’s Phillip Noyce in 1997, but its critical and commercial returns ensured that was the only big-screen mission so far.
