This may be the weirdest news of the week. I'm a big fan of Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, who is known for creating stylish, entertaining, less than brainy action flicks. He's the man behind last summer's James McAvoy-Angelina Jolie shoot 'em up
Wanted, and also the awesome Russian vampire movies
Night Watch and
Day Watch. The director has a very unique visual style, but he's certainly not the first person I would hire to helm the film adaptation of a literary classic.
Apparently, Universal disagrees. According to
Variety, the studio has hired Bekmambetov to direct an effects-driven reimagining of the Herman Melville classic
Moby Dick. Only in Hollywood, or perhaps on an episode of
The Critic, would you hear about a "graphic novel-style" version of the story that drops Ishmael's first-person narration and amps up the white whale violence. That's the angle the screenplay by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage (
Accepted) takes, and the writers also plan to depict Captain Ahab more as a charismatic leader than a brooding obsessive.
"Our vision isn't your grandfather's
Moby Dick," Cooper said. "This is an opportunity to take a timeless classic and capitalize on the advances in visual effects to tell what at its core is an action-adventure revenge story."
I don't know what to make of this news, so I'll leave it to you guys to chime in with an opinion. Is this a brilliant idea or Hollywood's creative nadir?
- Don Williams, BuddyTV Staff Writer
Source: Variety
(Image courtesy of Amazon.com)
