After turning a popular series of books into a successful series of blockbusters, The Hunger Games producer Nina Jacobson, director Francis Lawrence, and Mockingjay scriptwriter Peter Craig are now tackling one of the great literary classics: Homer’s The Odyssey. Via Deadline:
Lionsgate has put this on a fast track. The plan is to begin production early next year, right after the filmmakers complete promotion of Mockingjay – Part 2, which will be released November 20. Motion Picture Group co-president Erik Feig is overseeing this with exec production veep Jim Miller and development director James Myers. The project took root when Feig pitched it to Lawrence in Paris while they worked on the Hunger Games finale.
Studios are all about turning existing properties into movies and turning movies into franchises, and I’m honestly surprised it took them this long to start pillaging the vault of required university reading. Clash of the Titans meets Game of Thrones, but by The Hunger Games people? Give those folks a green light like yesterday, man! Daddy wants to buy a new Maserati with his bonus!
No word on whether this will be a standalone film, a trilogy, or the new quadrilogies Hollywood has been milking lately. But with 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter to work with, the writers should have enough material for however many hours of swords and sandals they decide to go with. We’re talking about the guy who managed to stretch Mockingjay out into two films, after all.
[Deadline]
