Giant sea creature adventure Here There Be Monsters has been slinking around the development oceans for a year or so now,and the latest director to turn his periscope towards the project is Jaume Collet-Serra.
The man who brought the world Orphan and Unknown has been part of Warner Bros. long-running attempt to bring Akira into the live-action world. But with that one stalled to sort out its spiralling budget, the director is looking around for other projects. He has revisionist Dracula tale Harker bubbling away in development, but Vulture has heard that it won’t shoot until 2014, with Russell Crowe still on board to star.
So Collet-Serra may end up filling his time with Monsters, which, like Akira, is also a Warners / Legendary Pictures collaboration and already boasts a script from Brian Helgeland that has attracted the likes of Robert Zemeckis and Brad Bird.
Monsters follows real-life revolutionary war type John Paul Jones, who in the story is relieved of his naval commission and hired by a shipping tycoon to investigate his ships disappearing in the North Atlantic. Can you guess what’s happening to them? Big squids!
The next step for the film is a script polish and then the producers want to offer the meaty lead role to Bradley Cooper, who has more schedule space free after Paradise Lost went away. He’s busy shooting Serena right now, and then plans to transition to The Hangover Part 3, but then after that, he could well find space to fight sea monsters. But until there’s a contract in play, you can go ahead and file him under “rumoured” for now.