Michael Mann is officially confirmed to direct Agincourt

Michael Mann

HEAT and PUBLIC ENEMIES helmer Michael Mann has been confirmed to direct the feature adaptation of the Bernard Cornwell novel AGINCOURT. Lu Roeg’s Independent and Mann’s Forward Pass are behind the project and Benjamin Ross is writing the script, all according to Screen Daily.

Production on the film is set to kick off in England and France, probably early in 2013 , but I’m just guessing on that one as the project is in its very early stages of development.

Here’s the plot courtesy of Amazon, more on the project at the end of the link above:

Young Nicholas Hook is dogged by a cursed past–haunted by what he has failed to do and banished for what he has done. A wanted man in England, he is driven to fight as a mercenary archer in France, where he finds two things he can love: his instincts as a fighting man, and a girl in trouble. Together they survive the notorious massacre at Soissons, an event that shocks all Christendom. With no options left, Hook heads home to England, where his capture means certain death. Instead he is discovered by the young King of England–Henry V himself–and by royal command he takes up the longbow again and dons the cross of Saint George. Hook returns to France as part of the superb army Henry leads in his quest to claim the French crown. But after the English campaign suffers devastating early losses, it becomes clear that Hook and his fellow archers are their king’s last resort in a desperate fight against an enemy more daunting than they could ever have imagined. One of the most dramatic victories in British history, the battle of Agincourt–immortalized by Shakespeare in Henry V–pitted undermanned and overwhelmed English forces against a French army determined to keep their crown out of Henry’s hands. Here Bernard Cornwell resurrects the legend of the battle and the “band of brothers” who fought it on October 25, 1415. An epic of redemption, Agincourt follows a commoner, a king, and a nation’s entire army on an improbable mission to test the will of God and reclaim what is rightfully theirs. From the disasters at the siege of Harfleur to the horrors of the field of Agincourt, this exhilarating story of survival and slaughter is at once a brilliant work of history and a triumph of imagination—Bernard Cornwell at his best.