Mel Gibson On The Edge Of Darkness In New Pic

I've been picking up a vague idea that – and you know, tell me if you've sensed it too – that Empire are trying really hard at the moment. Be sure and stop by their site to at least give them something back in return, eh?

Their latest scoop is an image from Edge of Darkness. Directed by Martin Campbell, who pretty much single handedly rescued the Bond franchise not once but twice, the film stars Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone and Danny Huston. In their image, Mel Gibson is seen with Bojana Novakovic, with him coming across as quizzical and concerned and her coming across as... well... dead.

Or maybe that's him doing his angry face, or a blend of all the above. Don't know. May never work it out. But I know she's dead, because that's what the entire plot hangs on.

Like State of Play, which is in cinemas now, Edge of Darkness is a conspiracy thriller adapted from a BBC TV series; also like Play, Darkness has quite a keen suspicion about politicians and where business and politics intersect; whereas State of Play was just a few years old, Darkness dates back to 1985; and whereas State of Play picked up a new director on the way to the big screen, trading David Yates for Kevin MacDonald, Edge of Darkness stuck with Martin Campbell.

They both got new writers, though – with William Monahan and Andrew Bovell responsible for adapting Troy Kennedy Martin's original scripts for the new Darkness movie.

In the original show (which scared me horribly as a child, but I watched it anyway), the role played by Mel Gibson was played by Bob Peck, and brilliantly so. Boiling six hours down to about two is a process that normally requires quite an overhaul and the film's plot is rumoured to be very different to the series' in many respects but Winstone's character is, in name and at least major function, the same as Joe Don Baker's in the show, and Danny Huston seems to be playing the part previously held by Kenneth Nelson.

You may not know that Troy Kennedy Martin wanted the lead character to turn into a tree at the end of the original series. No, really. Scout's honour. I doubt very much, of course, that finally realising this will be one of the changes in the film re-do.