It's been a good week now since Benedict Cumberbatch was linked with a new movie, and it may just be that the rolodeck of Hollywood casting agents has made it past the mail 'C'. That's nothing against Cumberbatch himself, rather the seeming trend to link him with approximately 47.22% of active Hollywood productions. Give or take.
One of which, of course, was JJ Abrams' Star Wars: Episode VII. Cumberbatch's representative has denied this once, but the man himself has now given an interview to The Hollywood Reporter, where he says on a Star Wars role "I don't know. Who knows, who knows? Nothing is known of that. I worked with JJ. Obviously he knows. Everyone who wants to be part of that movie, they know about".
No change there, then. The official line is no Cumberbatch, the word from decent internet news sources is he will be in the movie. The man himself doesn't seem resistant to the idea, but then he doesn't seem to know much more about it than that.
It was a potential Star Wars role that was rumoured to be the reason why Cumberbatch dropped out of Guillermo del Toro's next movie, Crimson Peak, which the director is set to start shooting early next year. But apparently, that's not the case. "That was nothing to do with it at all", he said. "[It was] between me and Guillermo, to be honest. It was amicable, and that's all I'm going to say".
Make of that what you will. Cumberbatch's role in Crimson Peak has been taken by Tom Hiddleston, it seems. Every cloud...