EXCLUSIVE: You remember Brendan Fraser, right? Whose movie career has been in the witness protection program since CBS Films’ Extraordinary Measures and hasn’t had a major hit since 2008′s Journey To The Center Of The Earth 3D and The Mummy 3. But whose roles remain as eclectic as anyone’s in Hollywood? Well, he hasn’t changed his ways even though he’s been absent from the box office recently. Fraser will star in what’s being billed to me as a “sweeping epic historical drama” that starts production in Toronto in August. Four Kings is set against the French and Indian War that essentially divided North America. Executive produced by Todd Moyer and James Holt, the film is produced by Jeff Sackman (American Psycho) from a project developed by Telefilm Canada. Fraser, himself a Canadian-American, stars as Colonel Lord Francis Nicholson, a vastly wealthy Brit who self-finances the war in the hope of creating a utopian society in what is now Canada. Writer/director Damian Lee of Alchemist Entertainment is attached. 

Fraser will also voice the role of Scorch in The Weinstein Company’s much-delayed 3D animated film, Escape From Planet Earth, about a group of aliens plotting to escape that top-secret Nevada compound popular with conspiracists known as Area 51. It was first announced back in 2006, no kidding! The film is being produced by Catherine Winder, Donna Gigliotti, and visual effects whiz Luke Carroll, from Cal Brunker who segues to director from the storyboard artist on both Despicable Me and 9. 

Fraser kicks his career into overdrive this summer when he stars in several films shooting between June and the end of August. Fraser’s currently on location in Belfast shooting the fish-heist comedy Whole Lotta Sole, co-written and directed by Terry George, and will start on Gimme Shelter in June directed by writer/director Ronald Krass. He’s repped by CAA, Brillstein Entertainment and attorney Patti Felker.

Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.