AICN Provides more details on the the shutdown of WB’s Tarzan
Over at Aint It Cool News, Beaks has put forward a nice piece on the WB shutdown of Tarzan that adds some additional dimension and detail to the story. While feeling as disheartened as we do over here, Beaks points out that Yates has a lot of TV experience, he works fast, and he’s flexible — all of which could perhaps lead to a chance for this to get back up on the rails for 2014. We can hope.
Oh, and the best part of the article is AICN’s picture of what appears to be a WB studio executive as the image for the article — an image which has been appropriated by JCF and appears above.
WB’s Latest Tarzan Reportedly Put On Hold
Beaks here…
How long has TARZAN been in development at Warner Bros? Well, here’s a link to my now ten-year-old (and now unreadable) interview with John August, where we discussed his participation in the studio’s development of a new, modernized TARZAN film. That film never came to pass… nor did the Guillermo del Toro version a few years later… nor did Stephen Sommer’s version… nor did Craig Brewer’s version…
And now, according to Deadline, the David Yates version is falling apart. This iteration got further down the road than most. Alexander Skarsgard had been cast as the titular Lord of the Apes, Jessica Chastain was in talks to play Jane, and Samuel L. Jackson was attached to play a Civil War veteran seeking redemption for his role in the massacre of Native Americans. The story centered on Tarzan and the Civil War vet teaming up to fight a Congolese warlord who controls a massive diamond mine. I’m not sure how much of this screenplay belonged to Brewer and how much was derived from Adam Cozad’s (JACK RYAN) draft, but the project was promising enough to get some great, heavily-in-demand actors interested.