According to The Hollywood Reporter, actor Paul Bettany is in negotiations to play the title role in an adaptation of the Tokyopop manhwa Priest by Min Woo Hyung.  Bettany will join director Scott Stewart for whom he starred in the supernatural thriller Legion, which is due to open next January.

Screen Gems, which produced Legion, is also producing the adaptation of the 15-volume Priest from a screenplay by Cory Goodman (The Brood).  Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper told THR “I knew the moment I saw Stewart's first cut of Legion that Bettany was Priest and so I mentioned it to him immediately."

Back in 2006 Gerard Butler was set to star in an adaptation of Priest that was to have been directed by Andrew Douglas (see “Gerard Butler to Star in Priest”), but that project fell apart.  It now appears that Priest is back on track.