Pirates of the Caribbean and Australia screenwriter Stuart Beattie spoke to Collider recently about a few of his upcoming projects, one of which is Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle. The last we heard on the vine swinger was that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra director Stephen Sommers signed on to direct last September. So what’s happening?
BEATTIE: It’s at Warner Brothers. They’re deciding how much money… there’s like a battle over the budget of that. People do it one way, studio wants it another way and they’re just trying to find a middle ground.
So do you think that could be [Stephen Sommers'] next project, if the budget comes together?
BEATTIE: Yeah. Yeah, if they reach an agreement, yeah. Very much could be.
With Tarzan, is that a modern day thing? What’s your take on it?
BEATTIE: Oh no. It’s a period. It’s a period. You have to be “Tarzan” period, I think. It’s kind of like…”Tarzan”, I think, probably the most filmed story of all, so our belief in doing a “Tarzan” movie today was you couldn’t go tell the raised by gorillas and loincloths and “Me: Tarzan and You: Jane”-story because it’s been done so much and it’s just not interesting anymore. So it was much more big romantic action-adventure film with supernatural stuff and witch doctor and lots of really fun stuff. And mythic Africa, like that deep dark heart of Africa stuff, you know, where the trees are twice as big and the vines stretched forever and the canopy is a whole world in itself and just really cool looking place to spend a couple of hours.
I’d actually be interested in seeing a film like that…just without the director of Van Helsing in charge. People such as Guillermo del Toro have been involved in making a Tarzan movie in the past, so if we just get a typical dumb summer blockbuster i’d be a bit disappointed.
