David Tennant joins Simon Pegg in John Landis' 'Burke and Hare'

Director John Landis announced this weekend at the Spooky Empire conventions in Orlando that 'Doctor Who' would be joining 'Tim Bisley' for his new film Burke and Hare. David Tennant will have found life after his famed stint as everyone's favorite doctor and joins Simon Pegg to share in the lead roles.

The film is about two 19th century grave robbers who find a lucrative business providing cadavers for an Edinburgh medical school. The screenplay was penned by Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft. BloodyDisgusting

This would appear to be a remake of the 1972 film Horrors of Burke & Hare which itself was based on true events known as the West Port murders. Refer to the 1972 IMDB and Wikipedia links below for a detailed descriptions about the real events. In short, Hare's wife ran a lodging house where Burke stayed. The Endinburgh medical school could only use bodies of deceased criminals and when they started running short on supply grave robbing increased. As patrons of the lodge passed Hare and Burke would sell the body to a Dr. Robert Knox in the school. Whenever a patron looked to be on their death bed they would accelerate the process. In all they murdered 17 people and were arrested. Hare testified against Burke who was hung and publicly dissected. His skeleton, death mask, and items made from his tanned skin are displayed at the college's museum.

It looks from the remake listing as if Landis is going with a black comedy approach to the retelling of this story. Good luck with that.