Second Adaptation Of ‘Treasure Island’ In The Works; Paul Greengrass Nearly Directed

Every great producer needs a niche. Harvey Weinstein makes Oscar bait, for instance, while Scott Rudin specializes in upmarket literary adaptations, and Neal Moritz comes up with nothing but unrepentant horseshit. “Sherlock Holmes” producer Lionel Wigram certainly seems to have found his niche: taking out-of-copyright literary properties and “Dante’s Peak”-ing them, beating any rival adaptations to theaters. His surprisingly good Guy Ritchie-helmed mystery proved a big hit, spawning a forthcoming sequel and seemingly killing the mooted Will Ferrell/Sacha Baron Cohen version of the characters.

He’s also working on a “Three Musketeers” movie, to be directed by Doug Liman, which hopes to beat Paul W.S. Anderson’s version into theaters (we sort of hope so too…), and today brings news that he’s also working on a new version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel “Treasure Island.” The book follows the adventures of Jim Hawkins who joins an expedition in search of treasure, only to find that half of the crew are murderous, self-serving pirates, led by the charismatic Long John Silver. There have been over 50 adaptations of the novel to date, with the likes of Orson Welles, Jack Palance and Charlton Heston all taking on the iconic role of Long John Silver.

We reported a little while ago that Ecosse Films (“Nowhere Boy”) were in development of one version, which promised to update the story, with a “hipper” take on Silver, in the vein of Robert Downey Jr.’s take on Holmes. Wigram’s not to be left out, however, as he’s also been developing a version of the tale for Warners, with a script now completed from newcomer Michael Gilio, who’s also writing “Black Hole” for Gore Verbinski. Most intriguingly, Pajiba also report that Paul Greengrass was at one stage circling the Warner Bros version.

We know that the site are on the money here, because we were told last week that Greengrass might have been attached to a version of “Treasure Island.” We checked with Ecosse, who denied it; as it turns out Greengrass had been circling the then-secret rival version. He didn’t sign on, in favor of the James Cameron-produced version of “Fantastic Voyage,” but it suggests the tone that Wigram’s looking for with his version — presumably a grittier, more realistic look at swashbuckling than the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, but one still full of action. The producer’s got plenty of muscle after the success of “Holmes,” so we imagine we’ll see it moving forward sooner rather than later.