Bruckheimer on PERSIA
When it comes to throwing together big, overblown action franchises no producer is better than Jerry Bruckheimer. Having made a hit franchise out of the dormant swashbuckler/pirate genre hes in a position where he can pitch just about anything he wants and Hollywood will listen. Now the Bruckster has his crosshairs trained on the popular videogame franchise PRINCE OF PERSIA. The movie - probably a thankless task when you look at the track record for videogaame films - has been mooted for some time and weve all heard that a script has been written and Mike Newell is set to direct. Bruckheimer spills so more details on the project to Collider:
We hired a very interesting director Mike Newell who did one of the HARRY POTTERs and also did DONNIE BRASCO and hes a very inventive, ingenious director and I think hes going to bring something really special to it. Were just starting to we have a screenplay, were just starting to develop the look of it. Itll be unique and fresh.Turns out the project is further along than we may have initially thought, with a tentative start date for next year. However the WGA strike could pose a problem.
Well were not going to film until June so hopefully the writers will come to some kind of consensus with the studios and we can continue.I read the first 20 pages or so of the PRINCE OF PERSIA script and its pretty rough and not really in any kind of shape to film. If the strike prolongs then studios are going to get desperate for tentpole pictures. Hopefully that doesnt mean well get shoddy scripts going into production like PRINCE OF PERSIA. On the other hand, though, itd be nice to see studios pull the trigger on early drafts of GOOD scripts before they are focus-grouped into oblivion. David Goyer wrote an excellent draft of BATMAN BEGINS that pretty much ended up as the movie while the FANTASTIC FOUR series has been through multiple writers with unspectacular results. source - collider