Don't be surprised if Paramount Pictures decide to turn David Grann's non-fiction story
The Lost City of Z - about a real-life Indiana Jones in soldier and explorer Col. Percy Fawcett who led a 1925 expedition into the uncharted Brazilian jungle, only to vanish into thin air just like the golden Amazoian city he spent his life trying to find - as the basis of story for an
Indiana Jones 5, or maybe even
6. At least that's what I would do. The well educated and rugged Victorian archaeologist, who pushed the limits of his physical being into perilous situations in an effort to solve historys greatest mysteries Fawcett, his son Jack and his sons best friend Ralph were never to be heard of again after jetting off to El Dorado, and neither were many of the hundreds who later went searching for them. I would make Fawcett, who was a fearless man who had survived so many near-death escapades over the years, including encounters with cannibalism, huge anacondas, deadly piranhas into a life-long role model for Indy, who now takes the perilious journey to find Fawcrett and the Lost City of Eldorardo. There's money to be made in that story, I feel.
For the past two years,
Brad Pitt has been attached to star in what was a tentpole of high interest for me, but he dropped out his week to re-team with his Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford co-star
Casey Affleck, and director
Andrew Dominik for
the mob comedy Cogan's Trade.
Vulture also suggest director
James Gray (We Own The Night, The Yards) is also now gone. I've read the book, and the fate of Fawcett is still so provocative after all these years, and the potential gorgeous imagery that the Brazil jungles could bring to a big-budget spectacle is an opportunity too good to miss. Let's hope the story gets told one way or the other.