Author Michael Crichton’s final novel, “Pirate Latitudes” won’t hit stores until November, but the film already has a green light for a movie version. And the film will serve as a reunion for Crichton and Steven Spielberg, according to USA Today.
Spielberg has signed on to serve as the producer for the upcoming project and he may sit in the director’s chair as well. Spielberg and Crichton have teamed up before for “Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World: Jurassic Park.”
Joining the project is screen writer David Koepp, who adapted the novels for the big-screen for the first two “Jurassic Park” films.
DreamWorks Studios describes the novel, set for release Nov. 24, as the story of “a daring plan to infiltrate Port Royal, one of the world’s richest and most notorious cities, and raid a Spanish galleon filled with treasure.”
“It’s a mission movie, and we see it through the prism of what it might have been like to live on the island during that time,” says Stacey Snider, Spielberg’s partner in DreamWorks and the company’s co-chair and CEO.
DreamWorks says it will wait for the final script before setting a shooting schedule. However, the studio may want to work to not compete with Disney’s fourth installment of the “Pirate of the Caribbean” franchise, according to USA Today. DreamWorks recently signed a deal that will see some of its films distributed by Disney, who produces the “Pirates” movies.
“Anything that Michael wrote, Steven would be keenly interested to read. But without Michael knowing it, or even me knowing it, it turns out Steven always wanted to direct his own pirate film.”
Cool… I love Crichton and didn’t know he had one more book coming out.
Never thought Crichton would write about pirates, sounds very interesting.
Yeah, I was stoaked when I found out there was more book coming. And the idea of a Steven Spielberg pirate film is awesome.
As long as the movie doesn’t become a Mickey Mouse/Disneyfied version of Crichton’s novel, sounds promising.