Regé-Jean Page to Lead New ‘Count of Monte Cristo’ Movie

Preview:

• ‘Bridgerton’ breakout Regé-Jean Page will star in a new movie based on ‘The Count of Monte Cristo.’
• It’s the latest adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas novel.
• Page plays a man who seeks revenge against those who wronged him.

Having broken out impressively playing Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings in the first season of Netflix’s period drama smash ‘Bridgerton,’ Regé-Jean Page has spent the last few years securing some interesting supporting work and a few leading roles.

And, like many of his peers, he’s also turned his hand to producing movies and TV shows, looking to keep his schedule busy with roles he chooses and develops.

He formed production company A Mighty Stranger with business partner Emily Brown, and the pair are now, via Deadline, setting up a new adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel ‘The Count of Monte Cristo.’

It’s all coming together via independent production studio Department M, overseen by producers Mike Larocca and Michael Schaefer, who are developing the movie with Page and Brown.

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What’s the story of The Count of Monte Cristo’?

Originally serialized from 1844 to 1846, and published in book form in 1846. It is one of Dumas’ most popular works, along with ‘The Three Musketeers’ and ‘Man in the Iron Mask.’

The story takes place in France, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean during the era of the Bourbon Restoration through the reign of Louis Philippe I.

Before he can marry his fiancée Mercédès, Edmond Dantès, a French nineteen-year-old first mate of the merchant ship Pharaon, is falsely accused of treason, arrested, and imprisoned without trial in the Château d’If, a grim island fortress off Marseille.

A fellow prisoner, Abbé Faria, correctly deduces that romantic rival Fernand Mondego, envious crewmate Danglars, and double-dealing magistrate De Villefort are responsible for his imprisonment.

Over the course of their long imprisonment, Faria educates Dantès and, knowing himself close to death, inspires him to retrieve for himself a cache of treasure Faria had discovered.

After Faria dies, Dantès escapes and finds the treasure. As the fabulously wealthy, powerful and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo, he enters the fashionable Parisian world of the 1830s to avenge himself.

Having long been considered a classic, the book has been adapted countless times before, including the most recent movie in 2024, directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière and starring Pierre Niney.

Yet to US audiences, the most famous version is likely the 2002 movie, directed by Kevin Reynolds and starring Jim Caviezel, Dagmara Domińczyk, Richard Harris and Guy Pearce, which was released by Touchstone.

Here’s what Page had to say about the new effort:

“Bold, adventurous storytelling with heart is the reason I got into this business, and is the backbone of everything we’re making. Working alongside incredible collaborators, A Mighty Stranger is building a slate of creative-led projects that will broaden the cultural lens through pure entertainment. That’s why we’re so excited to be bringing ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ to global audiences, unlocking the depths of Dumas’ work in ways not seen yet.”

Where else have I seen Regé-Jean Page?

Though he’d been working on stage and on screens big and small before ‘Bridgerton,’ it was his role in the Shondaland series that really brought him to major public attention and onto the list of filmmakers looking for leading men.

He was nominated for an Emmy as well as two Screen Actos Guild Awards for that role, and went on to appear in the likes of Paramount’s film ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ alongside Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez; the Russo Brothers’ ‘The Gray Man,’ also starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans.

Other credits include another Shonda Rhimes’ series, ‘For the People’ and his role as “Chicken George” in 2016 in History Channel’s miniseries remake ‘Roots,’ nominated for seven Emmys.

He’s been attached for a while to a new movie take on action series ‘The Saint,’ though that is currently in development limbo, and is more actively gearing up to appear in ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ series, for the Russos’ AGBO company, with Page in the Cassidy role.

Most recently, Page was seen alongside Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett in Steven Soderbergh’s espionage film ‘Black Bag’ which Focus and Universal Pictures put into theaters a couple of weeks ago.

Aside from the new ‘Monte Cristo,’ Department M has a couple of other titles on the way: ‘Blood On Snow,’ starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Benedict Cumberbatch, directed by Emmy winner Cary Joji Fukunaga, and adapted by Ben Power from the crime-thriller novel by Jo Nesbø, and ‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,’ from highly acclaimed Mexican writer-director Michelle Garza Cervera, a remake of the classic 1992 thriller.

When will ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ be on screens?

With no distributor aboard just yet, we’ll have to wait and see when the new movie scores a release date.

List of Regé-Jean Page Movies and TV Shows: