Robin Williamsis to play the villain in Insomnia, Christopher Nolan's big-budget Hollywood studio remake of the Norwegian psychological thriller originally made in 1997. He will staropposite two other Oscar-winners, Al Pacino and Hillary Swank, when shootinggets underway in Vancouver on April 16th.

In a major change of direction from his typical roles, Williams is to play a character in a small Alaskan town who is the primesuspect in the murder a teenage girl. Pacino plays the sleep-deprived big-town police detective who accidentally kills his partner while conducting the investigation is then blackmailed by Williams and forced to pin the murder on an innocent.

Being produced through Alcon Entertainment, Witt-Thomas Films and Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney's Warner-based Section 8 Entertainment, Insomnia will be released in North America through Warner Bros. Internationally, the film is being sold through SummitEntertainment.

Hillary Seitz adapted the script from the original that was written by director ErikSkojdbjaerg, who set the film during the permanent daylight of the Arctic summer in the northern reaches of Norway.

Named after the ally of Hercules -- a mythological archer who never missed his target -- Alcon Entertainment was founded in 1997 by its co-presidents Broderick Johnson and Andrew A. Kosove, and is personally financed by Frederick W. Smith, who is thefounder, chairman & chief executive officer of FedEx Corporation. Alcon hasa five-year, ten-picture distribution agreement with Warner Bros.

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