Few characters in motion picture history have been reimagined as many times as Tarzan. From the Johnny Weissmuller adventures of the 30s and 40s to the cheesecake of Bo Derek in Tarzan, The Ape Man to the literary pretentions of Greystoke to his most recent turn as a Disney cartoon, the lord of the apes has proved remarkably resilient. Now let’s see if he can survive the director of Van Helsing, GI Joe and two Mummy movies. Stephen Sommers will direct the latest version from Warner Bros., per The Hollywood Reporter. Sommers and screenwriter Stu Beattie “do not plan to work from the original 1914 Burroughs tome or any previous film. An entirely new approach is in the works, though more details beyond that are being kept under wraps tighter than Tarzan's loincloth.”
In a vaguely related development, Russian bodybuilder-turned-actor Alexander Nevsky will produce and star in Hercules: The Beginning. “The move comes at a time when Universal Pictures and Nu Image/Millennium productions are also planning projects based on the Greek hero,” Variety warns.
In non-loincloth movie news, Variety also reports that Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney have acquired the rights to Steven Pressfield’s novel Killing Rommel. The book “focuses on the British Long Range Desert Group and its attempt to stop Rommel, the legendary Desert Fox who routed the British in the North African desert in 1942 and threatened to overrun the Middle East thanks to his battlefield strategies and Panzer tanks.” Clearly this is a story crying out for that subtle Bruckheimer touch.
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