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Warner Bros Developing a Brand New Treasure Island Movie

by Ethan Anderton
April 20, 2010
Source: Pajiba

Earlier this year Variety reported that the UK based Ecosse Films was developing an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure novel Treasure Island. This iteration intends to update the story of pirates and buried treasure for contemporary audiences by playing up the relationship between Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins and do for the novel what Guy Ritchie did for Sherlock Holmes. But it looks like producer Lionel Wigram, who produced Sherlock Holmes, is working with Warner Bros to beat them to the punch with his adaptation of Treasure Island (via Pajiba), which already has the jump on Ecosse's version.

If you're unfamiliar with the classic Treasure Island, here's Amazon's description of the adventurous tale:

Following the demise of bloodthirsty buccaneer Captain Flint, young Jim Hawkins finds himself with the key to a fortune. For he has discovered a map that will lead him to the fabled Treasure Island. But a host of villains, wild beasts and deadly savages stand between him and the stash of gold. Not to mention the most infamous pirate ever to sail the high seas.

Apparently Warner Bros already has a finished screenplay from Michael Gilio, a relative unknown whose only produced work is an obscure 2001 indie project called Kwik Stop. Since WB and Wigram don't want to show all their cards to a competing project, the plot details are being kept under wraps, but Pajiba says that Paul Greengrass was attached to direct at one point, so the style of the story is likely to be in the same edgy, fast-paced vein of Greengrass' previous work. However, a project like this dealing with pirates on the high seas is really going to have to separate itself from Pirates of the Caribbean, and while that might not be too difficult in theory, audiences will still need something to be convinced. Sound good to anybody else?

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