Screenwriting: Warners Taps A Writer For ‘The Lost Years Of Merlin;’ Max Landis Writing Fox’s ‘Pied Piper; Chris Smith Pens Holiday Tale
By Russ Fischer/May 17, 2011 7:00 am EST
Surprise, surprise, this would be a Merlin origin tale, following “Merlin’s journey from being a boy washed on the shores of Wales with no memory and no home, to him becoming a young man learning to use his powers and ultimately defender of the natural world and eventual mentor to King Arthur.” (This project was once at Paramount, but the option lapsed and WB stepped in. It is also different from the modern-day Merlin story that Working Title was putting together last year.) [THR]
After the break, Max Landis picks up a pipe, and a good genre director tries his hand at kids’ holiday fare.
Finally, Christopher Smith, who has earned our attention with films like Triangle, Severance and Black Death, has been hired to write a currently untitled Christmas tale for Scott Free’s UK arm. Yep, that’s right: the guy whose tales have so far been pretty grimy, gory and twisted will write a kids’ film. THR says the ingredients are “Santa Claus, missing reindeers, a freshly-released-from-prison getaway driver and his son.” The idea is that he’ll direct the film, too, and I can get behind that idea. He’s got four films in the indie genre trenches, and while I don’t want to see Mr. Smith leave genre films behind — he’s pretty good at them — I’d also like to see him break out to a larger audience. Maybe this will be to his career as Millions was to Danny Boyle’s?
