When you think of John Milton’s 17th-century poem Paradise Lost, does your mind immediately latch on to the idea of it (or at least a chunk of it) as an action spectacle with ripe potential for 3D? Alex Proyas’ brain-garden clearly does, as he’s signed on to make a battle-strewn adaptation for Legendary Pictures.
Proyas, who last brought the world Knowing, and has been working on developing Dracula Year Zero for a while now, has signed on to direct the ambitious adaptation for Legendary boss Thomas Tull.
The film, which has been waiting for someone to tackle it for a few years now, will chronicle the war between archangels Michael and Lucifer, with Lucifer’s fall and full-on angelic aerial clashes promised. Hopefully it’ll have the budget to provide proper angel footage as opposed to the empty visions of Legion.
And we’ve got some hope for the script too, since while Byron Willinger and Philip de Blasi wrote the first draft, the majority of the script’s shape has come from Exam’s Stuart Hazeldine, who has toiled on both the Milton adaptation and The Tripods for Proyas. And his work has since been through the hands of both Lawrence Kasdan and Ryan Condal.
There’s no word on when Proyas will start making the film (it’ll likely have to wait until after the Dracula pic), but Warner Bros. will step up to co-produce and co-finance it, should it finally find its way to production.