In Hancock, Peter Berg tackled a story of a man with god-like powers. Now he's cutting out the pretenders and turning his attentions to someone who is a god. Or at least a demi-god. But that's more god than most.
Berg is set to make a film based on Hercules, or Heracles to his Greek friends, the son of Zeus, king of the gods, and a mortal woman named Alcmena (not the goddess Hera, as suggested in the scholar-bothering Disney movie).
Berg's film won't be based so much on ancient myth as it will a series of comic books called Hercules: The Thracian Wars. This five-issue series, by Steve Moore, takes place 3,500 years in the past with a tyrannical king trying to unite the disparate tribes of Thrace into one powerful nation. He hires Hercules and his band of mercenaries to lead his army into war.
We're no experts on myths so we're not sure that this is based on events from actual Greek stories. We understand that Hercules did once go to Thrace, but it was for the love of a woman or to do some light shopping, or something – the language in Greek most things dealing with Greek myth is quite hard to penetrate – and we can find no mention of mercenaries. But it does make for a good plot for a movie.
Could this be the first step in a revival of mythological movies? Gods know, there are a ton of great yarns to be exploited. Jason and his argonauts could stand a re-make. That grumpy minotaur deserves some screen time. And there's one about Zeus getting it on with a lady while in the form of a swan, which could form the basis for the strangest romantic comedy ever. Get David Lynch to direct it.