Benedict Cumberbatch to Scale 'Blood Mountain'

Last year Benedict Cumberbatch was so busy it was like he had borrowed the transporter from Star Trek into Darkness to be everywhere in a flash. Besides that film he also starred in The Fifth Estate, August: Osage County, 12 Years a Slave, and voiced a certain dragon in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. And even though he's lightened his load a little by dropping Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak, Cumberbatch is ready to scale a totally different mountain.

Variety reports Cumberbatch has joined Blood Mountain, the upcoming film from Mongol director, Sergei Bodrov. Hey, Sergei, can we get that Mongol sequel some time soon, please? Anyway, the film "follows a private military contractor whose special forces team is ambushed and killed during a covert raid, forcing him to personally escort one of the world’s most wanted terrorists over hostile terrain in order to bring him to justice. With a bounty at stake and insurgents and rival mercenaries hunting them, the two find themselves facing not only their enemies, but each other in their fight for survival." Sounds a little bit like a modern day 3:10 to Yuma, which could be cool if screenwriters Jonathan Stokes and John Romano can pull it off.

Cumberbatch will be seen later this year as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, and may or may not be in Star Wars: Episode VII. Filming on Blood Mountain begins this April.