Corona | Coming Attractions

The UK trailer for Burke & Hare is on the internet. Your first looks at director John Landis' latest is below:

While walking the Cannes Film Festival, Slashfilm saw a poster soliciting an upcoming screening of Burke & Hare and snapped this photo of it. So that's what Isla Fisher looks like in this film, hmm?

With the film now shooting on the streets of Edinburgh, a score of U.K. newspaper photographers have snapped photos of Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis in costume prowling the cobblestones. The Edinburgh Evening News has two shots and The Daily Mail has two others.

Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton) and Isla Fisher (Confessions of a Shopaholic) have been added to the cast. Fisher will play the romantic interest of Simon Pegg, an actress who is attempting to woo a theater patron while Wilkinson will play Dr. Robert Knox, an anatomy professor who procures the services of Burke and Hare for corpses.

And Andy Serkis has been confirmed for the role of Hare. David Tennant had to vacate the part due to his commitment to star in an NBC pilot, Rex is Not My Lawyer.

Several sites are reporting that sometime earlier today Simon Pegg tweeted the following: "David Tennant had to drop out of B&H but by sheer glorious serendipity a legend of Middle Earth and Skull Island has come aboard. Welcome AS." One would assume that the Middle-Earth and Skull Island actor would be Andy Serkis.

However, when we checked Pegg's Twitter feed we found no tweet. A look back at direct links find that the tweet appears to have been deleted. Did Simon jump the gun?

As gathered by Collider from this year's American Film Market we now have the promotional poster and official story synopsis for Burke and Hare. Beware of spoilers in the text!

WILLIAM BURKE and WILLIAM HARE are scratching out a living in 1830s Edinburgh.  After yet another failed business venture, they return to Hare’s lodging house to find that their tenant has suddenly died on rent day.  As the boys decide how to dispose of the body over a drink, they discover that a corpse can fetch a hefty price.  Edinburgh is the centre of the medical universe and the city’s doctors are crying out for more cadavers for their educational lectures.  First they try the infamous DR. MONRO, but he’s not interested, so they sell the corpse to DR. KNOX, his vain and ambitious rival who urges them to bring any more ‘unfortunates’ they may stumble upon.

Entrepreneurial Hare is quick to realize they’ve hit on a great money making venture and despite the more sensitive Burke’s misgivings, they embark on a series of plans to secure more bodies.  They arrange a series of deadly ‘accidents’ for the local unfortunates and to celebrate their success, they go out on the town to celebrate.  There, Burke meets GINNY, a beautiful and spirited aspiring actress.

Drive on by the promise of romance, Burke agrees to step up their operation; branching out into “ethical” murder.  The professional rivalry between Knox and Munro is creating a very lucrative trade for the boys as Knox needs extra bodies for his groundbreaking photographic map of the human body.  In a series of hilarious comic misadventures Burke and Hare begin to secure a steady stream of bodies and the cash starts rolling in.

With the authorities closing in, Hare promises Burke he’s got a new plan; they just need a bit more money and then they can go legit and open a funeral parlour.

The pressure builds when Knox is arrested after dissecting some well known locals and he immediately implicates Burke and Hare as his supplier of fresh corpses.

On his way out of playing the tenth incarnation of the Timelord Brits call Doctor Who, Scottish-born David Tennant has now been cast as William Hare. That means the previously hired Simon Pegg will be playing Hare's accomplice William Burke. Filming has been slightly pushed back and is now pencilled in to start in early 2010.

He may be an Englander but Simon Pegg does have experience pulling off a Scottish accent in this year's Star Trek. The Spaced star has been cast in John Landis' Burke and Hare film as one-half of the ghoulish duo.