Isaac Newton! Space Pirates! Victorian era Alternative Universes!

I didn't realise Warner Bros. have this much money to throw around. If they can give $200 million for this, then surely they can get a stand-alone Wonder Woman movie off the ground? Shekhar Kapur, the guy who directed the brilliant Elizabeth but then went camp on us and gave us the ridiculously over dramatic, frantic and outrageously expensive production in Elizabeth: The Golden Age has been given $200 million by WB to develop and direct Larklight. This time he might actually spend the money on other things but costumes. Based on a Phillip Reeve's book of the same name, Kapur will develop the script with writer Steven Knight (Eastern Promises, Amazing Grace).

The 2006 book, set in a Victorian-era alternate universe in which mankind has been exploring the solar system since the time of Isaac Newton, revolves around a brother and sister who team with a band of renegade space pirates to save the world from destruction at the hands of a madman.

The book is described as being conceived for young adults and is actually just the first novel of a trilogy. At least it's something a little different from the reguritated fantasy plotlines we seem to be flooded with right now. Everything sounds pretty cool until you read the term "Space Pirates". That doesn't sound good does it? And PLEASE don't cast Freddie Highmore! source - the hollywood reporter