Benedict Cumberbatch To Star In Centuries Spanning Love Story ‘How To Stop Time’

Although Matt Haig’s new novel “How to Stop Time” won’t be released until July, it has already been picked up by Benedict Cumberbatch. “The Imitation Game” and “Doctor Strange” actor is set to star and produce the fantasy drama with  StudioCanal and through his own production company SunnyMarch.

In addition to serving as executive producer, Cumberbatch will play history professor Tom Hazard. While on he may seem like a regular, middle-aged professor on the surface, Hazard is suffering from a rare condition that has kept him alive over the course of four centuries. Here’s the book synopsis:

 ‘I am old. That is the first thing to tell you. The thing you are least likely to believe. If you saw me you would probably think I was about forty, but you would be very wrong.’ Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he’s been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen a lot, and now craves an ordinary life. Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom has the perfect cover – working as a history teacher at a London comprehensive. Here he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he’d never witnessed them first-hand. He can try and tame the past that is fast catching up with him. The only thing Tom mustn’t do is fall in love. How to Stop Time is a wild and bittersweet story about losing and finding yourself, about the certainty of change and about the lifetimes it can take to really learn how to live.

So far, a director and screenwriter have yet to be announced. While the author has some screenplay writing experience thanks 2014 hit film “Paddington,” there is no word on whether or not Haig will be working on the screenplay adaption.

“How to Stop Time” is the latest addition to Cumberbatch’s increasingly long list of projects. Cumberbatch is also set to executive produce and star in the adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel, “The Child In Time” for BBC. The British actor is currently filming “Avengers: Infinity War” and biopic “The Current War.