Really lazy journalism from
Borys Kit at The Hollywood Reporter, who unlike Obsessed With Film will have the contacts to find out whether the newly announced
Bryan Singer and Warner Bros remake of John Boorman's 1981 Arthurian movie
Excalibur, is the same "origin movie" of the Knights of the Roundtable that
Warren Ellis has been busy writing. The likelihood is that it's the same picture. Ellis was writing the project for Hollywood Gang, the co-producers of Warner Bros.
300 with Legendary Pictures (who co-produced
Superman Returns with Singer) so there is clearly a connection there and the timing just seems to make sense. I sincerely hope it's the same picture anyways, otherwise Ellis' version probably won't now see the light of day when going up against the mighty WB. Singer is only in talks to produce at this point as according to THR, his next directing gig will be on
Jack the Giant Killer, a dark fantasy re-telling of the classic Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale. Presumably his ambitious remake of
Battlestar Galactica which
he attached himself to last week will have to wait.
Jack the Giant Killer is a New Line production (remember now owned by WB) which somewhere along the line must have stopped being a
D.J. Caruso (
Disturbia, Eagle Eye)
picture as reported in January. Though Caruso is still attached to make according to
IMDB. Is today the first mention of this - if so, why has the trade almost buried the story? Here's the logline we had in Jan...
When a princess is kidnapped, a long-standing peace between men and giants becomes threatened, and a young farmer is given an opportunity to lead a dangerous expedition to the giant kingdom to rescue her.
IMDB have four writers listed. The last I heard
Mark Bomback (
Deception, Race to Witch Mountain) had re-written
Darren Lemke's original draft, but now IMDB are listing the writing duo behind
Freddy vs. Jasonand the new
Friday the 13thlisted. Oh boy! With all these deals in the past week, it's nice to see that Singer has got his passion back for big worlds and imaginations after the trouble he had with
Superman Returns. Personally, although Boorman's
Excalibur is currently the best version of the Arthurian legend... I've always thought there was a huge scope for improvement. I don't think we've ever seen Camelot the way the legend is drawn and written, nothing to the size of what I imagined as a kid. Same with the Knights of the Roundtable.
Jack and the Giant Killer I have no idea what to expect quite frankly, and the
Battlestar Galactica big screen movie just seems like bad timing right now.