Warner Bros. Buys David Dobkin’s ‘Arthur & Lancelot,’ Nicholas Sparks’ Latest Novel, & Hires ‘Halo: Reach’ Writer For Action Rewrite
By Russ Fischer/June 18, 2011 5:45 pm EST
First up, let’s quickly go over Arthur & Lanceleot, which Wedding Crashers and The Change-Up director David Dobkin wrote as a relatively big-budget ($90m) contemporary retelling of the King Arthur story. (Sorry, fans of Matt Wagner’s Mage — that property may have just been pre-empted. Bummer.)
Moving on in order of the bullet list above, there is sappy but ultra-popular sentimentalist Nicholas Sparks, whose books are consistently bought as movie material. (Safe Haven just landed Lasse Halstrom to direct; The Notebook was obviously a hit; and there are The Last Song and Nights in Rodanthe, just for starters.)
The latest is The Best of Me, about “former small-town high school sweethearts from opposite sides of the tracks. The story picks up when they are adults who broke up and took different paths. Neither has forgotten that first love affair, and they meet when they return to their hometown for a funeral. They confront the past and a possible future.” [Deadline]
Finally, Peter O’Brien, who wrote the story for Microsoft’s game Halo: Reach, has been tapped to rewrite F. Scott Frazier’s action script Line of Sight for producers Joel Silver and Andrew Rona.
The story follows “an elite commando squad transporting cargo while dealing with a global threat.” THR reports on the deal and says that the fact of Mr. O’Brien having written Halo: Reach was a significant factor in his hire for this one, so that might give you some indication of what to expect.
