The Ancient World is in...

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The success of Gladiator ushered a number of Ancient/Historical epics into production. The massive failure of those filmic descendents, including Troy, King Arthur, Alexander and Kingdom of Heaven, crushed the genre into silence again.

But Hollywood is hardly known for its originality. When something makes money it’s suddenly back as the number 1 hot property. As 300 had proved… So brace yourself for 2 more Ancient/Historical epics with a fantasy flavour.

Yay for the Persians

Anyway, a little while back, I reported that a movie adaptation of action-adventure video game Prince of Persia was getting a Pirates-style rework (don't forget it all started with a theme park ride) to become Jerry Bruckheimer’s next ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ Summer success story.

This week it was announced over at IESB.net, well, semi-officially, that Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is set for a Summer 2009 release.


The director in charge of the wall-running acrobatics? Michael Bay. Yes, the hit-and-miss man behind Bad Boys, Armageddon, The Rock, Con Air, Pearl Harbour, and the soon-to-be-released Transformers. With Bay as director the question becomes ‘What the hell is there to blow up in a towering Middle Eastern palace?’ and ‘How will they squeeze car chase carnage into the early ADs?’ Chariots?

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, here's the original trailer...



Bring on the god games

Aint It Cool News is reporting that old George Lucas/Steven Spielberg scriptwriting sidekick Lawrence Kasdan is remaking Clash of the Titans.

I loved the original Clash of the Titans (technically Clash of the Olympians – the Titans are an earlier generation of gods) when I was little: hero Perseus riding winged-horse Pegasus, Medusa turning men to stone, the 3 Fates sharing one eye, statues coming to life, clockwork owls and the Greek gods playing games with humanity via little clay figurines. In my mind nothing could top Ray Harryhausen’s legendary stop motion special effects.


It would be great to see a 21st Century take on all the mythological action and beasties. And if they could assemble an all-star cast to play the Greek god pantheon, all the better.

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