How does one follow up on LOKI? Disney and Hiddleston have an answer!
The rights were with ITV and its companies for many years but Disney finally acquired WYCLIFFE! It is regarded as a major coup for the house of mouse studio, who recently hit hard times with delays in Marvel, Star Wars and Indiana Jones projects.
Wycliffe is an iconic anti-hero of the screen. Women LOVE him. Men want to BE him. A hard boiled cop with a secret heart of gold, he is a straight talking, straight shooting, straight acting cop. The original onscreen Wycliffe, Jack Shepherd, has given his blessing to TOM HIDDLESTON taking on the role via this ringing endorsement:
‘I was reluctant at first to give up the WYCLIFFE mantle. I still get a LOT of fan mail, royalties, women sending me their knickers, requests from actual Police to investigate murders and arrest bad guys and so on. But I give TOM HIDDLESTON my full 100% support in taking over. He is the ONLY actor out there with the machismo, charisma, talent and slippers to take the part from me’.
A spokesperson source at Disney has confirmed that the decision to fast track this project was based on franchise possibilities.
‘Wycliffe is a HUGE acquisition; quite the corporate cash-cow coup! Books, comics, radio, television, movies, video games and a Cornish theme park: a natural fit for us and our media empire!’.
They’re not wrong, either. At its peak? WYCLIFFE attracted a BILLION viewers, worldwide. Big in Japan! A massive following in Pakistan. Indeed, it was all set to become the first cop show shot live, in space. But the author (W.J. Burley: RIP) died while plotting the hero’s final cases.
Wycliffe, the character, has an open fate but it is thought he dies of boredom, having been shot/stabbed/buried in lava/drowned and fed to sharks. In Cornwall. Very dramatic. But the canon is fluid.
Jack Shepherd then left the role to learn flower arranging (Timothy Dalton has set up a school for actors to learn the craft; graduates include Nathaniel Parker of the ‘Inspector Lynley‘ mysteries fame).
There is definitely room to develop the WYCLIFFE series, afresh and Tom is THE man for the job! Hiddleston will soon be a very busy man. A classicist, he is determined that all his dialogue be written and performed in the Cornish language.
LOKI will shoot back to back with WYCLIFFE. It is thought, with this being MARVEL /DISNEY, the shows may even become a shared universe: the Norse God of mischief popping up in Cornwall to help his other self investigate crimes ranging from jay walking to bad body-boarding.
A personalised shoulder holster and slippers are being made for the new Wycliffe at time of writing. More news when we have it. NB filed under..you know the drill by now 😉
