There is a remake of Excalibur in development at Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures you might have heard about, with Bryan Singer considering it as a future project. But there’s also another Arthurian story bubbling away – and Guy Ritchie is angling for the directing job!
Yes, according to Pajiba, Warners – which has to wait for Singer to be ready to work on the remake of John Boorman’s 1981 film – is also pushing ahead with work on a take on the tale fashioned (to treatment, at least) by Warren Ellis.
Ellis announced last July that he was working on something that would use the Arthur tale for the producers of 300, but that it wouldn’t be the same story as Boorman’s movie. Instead, in, in the words of the writer himself, “it differs from the prior 751 King Arthur movies in many ways, but perhaps most obviously in that it is very specifically about the gathering of the Knights.”
We’ve heard of competing subjects – asteroids, volcanoes, Truman Capote – before, but both at the same studio? How things move on! Which version would end up coming first (assuming they both make it out of the scripting stage) is anyone’s guess, though Ritchie’s appears to have the edge to yank the production sword from the limbo stone right now, and we rather prefer it to a remake anyway. Got a favourite? Let us know…