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 he€™s 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 we€™ve 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:

€œWe hired a very interesting director €“ Mike Newell €“ who did one of the HARRY POTTER€™s and also did DONNIE BRASCO and he€™s a very inventive, ingenious director and I think he€™s going to bring something really special to it. We€™re just starting to€ we have a screenplay, we€™re just starting to develop the look of it. It€™ll 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.
€œWell we€™re 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 it€™s 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 doesn€™t mean we€™ll get shoddy scripts going into production like PRINCE OF PERSIA. On the other hand, though, it€™d 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

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