Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is well on the way, and, it seems, has created a bandwagon of sorts. Variety reports that Chuck Russell is busy prepping a 3D adventure based on The Arabian Nights. Good news everyone! It's a timeless classic of world literature, coming to the screen from the director of Eraser!
Russell has co-written the script with newbie Barry Ambrose. You'll be disappointed to hear that it's not an ambitious Reduced-Shakespeare-Company-style portmanteau comprising 1001 stories, but "a new spin", in which a young military commander joins forces with Sinbad, Aladdin, and the Genie of the Lamp, to rescue storyteller Scheherazade from "dark powers" that have murdered the king.
Russell also directed The Mummy spinoff The Scorpion King, which is a fair idea of the territory this will be treading, we'd assume (although on a larger scale). Budgeted at $70m, shooting starts in the spring.