Richard Armitage to play Wolverine in Marvel's first scripted podcast

Dec. 5 (UPI) -- The Hobbit and Berlin Station actor Richard Armitage is to lend his voice to the iconic character of Logan in Marvel's first scripted podcast.

The 10-episode series Wolverine: The Long Night is to debut in the spring, the Marvel website said Tuesday. It will stream exclusively on Stitcher Premium until the fall when it will become available on all podcast platforms.

The program's voice cast will also include Scott Adsit, Bob Balaban, Ato Essandohm, Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Brian Stokes Mitchell.

The role of Logan/Wolverine has been played by Hugh Jackman, 49, on the big screen since 2000.

"This is the project I've been secretly working on the past five months. Wolverine: The Long Night. The 1st podcast (radio play) series put out by @Marvel. I wrote ten, half-hour episodes, with @RCArmitage as the title character," writer Benjamin Percy tweeted, along with a link to a Mashable story about the show.

Armitage, 46, re-tweeted the post.

"Podcasting is an incredible, intimate medium that's perfect for telling stories, and I can't think of a better partner with whom to push the boundaries of scripted podcasts than Marvel," Erik Diehn, chief executive officer of Midroll Media, Stitcher's parent company, said in a statement to Mashable.

"They make every translation of their rich universe of characters into new media fresh and interesting while still retaining the feel and spirit of the original comics, and, as a Marvel fan, I'm proud that we've helped them do it again in podcasting. The arrival of Wolverine and his many fans to podcasts and Stitcher is truly a signal that this medium is a major part of the American media landscape."