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EXCLUSIVE: As New Line today opens Jack The Giant Slayer and Disney readies next week’s Oz The Great And Powerful, Hollywood’s infatuation with revisionist fairy tales shows no signs of abating. DreamWorks jumped into the fray last night by closing a mid-six figure against seven-figure deal for Merry Men, a pitch for a film that will be scripted by Brad Ingelsby with Act Of Valor co-director Scott Waugh attached to direct. Neal Moritz will produce through his Original Film banner. Waugh will also be a producer through his Bandito Bros shingle and Toby Ascher will be exec producer.
I’m told that the pitch is for a tentpole re-imagining of the Robin Hood legend. There has been no shortage of movies on him, starring the likes of Errol Flynn, Kevin Costner and most recently Russell Crowe. This is an ensemble piece centered around the supporting characters Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian and Will Scarlet. There is a high-concept revenge angle that tonally is reminiscent of The Dirty Dozen and Ocean’s Eleven.
It puts DreamWorks back in business with Waugh, who is right now in pre-production on Need For Speed. The Merry Men concept was hatched internally at Original Film and packaged through WME, with Elizabeth Buraglio supervising for Original. Ingelsby most recently scripted Run All Night, a thriller that will go into production at Warner Bros with Liam Neeson starring and Jaume Collet-Serra in talks to direct. His first script, Out Of The Furnace, is in the can. Scott Cooper directed the revenge thriller that stars Christian Bale. Ingelsby is currently scripting The Signal for Indian Paintbrush.
Ingelsby and Waugh are repped by WME, and Ingelsby is also repped by Energy and attorney Jeff Frankel. Howard Abramson repped Moritz.
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Why don’t they just film Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris Nottingham script, which was apparently great, but Ridley Scott completely changed, for some bizarre reason? Besides, is anyone really clamouring for another Robin Hood movie? There are original ideas out there?
I totally agree. I read an early draft. It needed work, but I loved the concept of making the Sheriff the hero. Always have admired Ridley Scott, but he screwed the pooch on that one. He threw out this great script, started from scratch and we ended up with nothing. Sad.
Ya, I’m normally a big Ridley Scott fan, but when I read about the account of what happened on that movie, I was quite disappointed.
Can’t agree with this enough.
Didn’t the Russell Crowe version start off as a revisionist version of Robin Hood (from Nottingham’s pov)?
A remake of a remake of a remake of a remake produced by a company called “Original Film”. Made me laugh.
There was a band…. the originals, so we changed our name to the New Originals.
Brooklyn Weaver’s only client strikes again. Good idea though DreamWorks is probably broke for the rest of the year now.
You must have a sad little life, John. Both Weaver and Dreamworks are doing great; you should be so lucky.
No knock on DREAMWORKS, I just hope they haven’t spent all their money for the year. Development budgets dry up fast. . . and tell me another meaningful client that Brooklyn reps and I’ll never post again. . . maybe. . .
Guess it depends on how you define meaningful… Jonathan Stokes had two scripts on the Blacklist in 2011… Got a couple sales last year. Will Simmons, Spencer Cohen, Dutch Southern — all just off the top of my head as guys who made deals last year. Oh yeah, Ben Magid is another one. I could probably find more if I tried. But why bother?
Seriously? ANOTHER Robin Hood project? Man, the Disney animated version from 73 outranks EVERY other RH made. Take the hint. A fox/bear combo does it better than live action. Dreamworks? Struggling to stay afloat. Original Film on yet another pre-existing property. Ingelsby? Revenge-Thriller is his only niche and he always has to crutch himself on another foundation (THE ALL NIGHTER is a revisionist take on ROAD TO PERDITION).
Pass.
S.S. — If you actually knew anything about Ingelsby’s work, you would know that he’s writing an original sci-fi family-adventure story for Indian Paintbrush (as reported above & on this site several times), a femme-fatale character-piece called HOLD ON TO ME (also for Indian Paintbrush), and actually began his writing career with a drama about two brothers (THE DYNAMITER) and a children’s story. But you obviously don’t know what you talking about, do you? But fear not, you are in good company here with the rest of the inane, uninformed haters that populate this site. Now get back to your lowly assistant/coordinator work, where nobody cares about you or your uninformed opinions, and let creative people like Brad be creative — and make a nice living do it. I like froth on my cappuccino, by the way. Just so you know.
Rep Alert. Rep Alert.
Unemployed alert.
the hate on this site is ridiculous. Ingelsby is knocking it out of the park left and right and it does not hurt to have Brooklyn Weaver in your corner.
I know about 50 writers who would disagree with you. . . So if it would help to have Brooklyn in your corner, who are his other clients that matter? Or is he just riding the way on his one very talented client.
There’s a long line of disgruntled former Weaver clients. He’s got a terrible rep if a writer doesn’t stay in the box Weaver puts him in.
Will Sherwood Forrest be inhabited by dwarves, gnomes, giants, witches and more game boy elements?
Surely, DreamWorks is not doing a character story about Robin Hood & Friends sans tentpole type visual effects? Would they actually attempt this…hope so…except, of course, for the flight of the arrows.
let me guess… they have plans to turn it into yet another pointless franchise, don’t they?
This is awesome news it means me and my men can steal Spielberg’s money and he won’t be angry he’ll be merry and he’ll agree it should be redistributed. We steal from the rich and give to the poor that’s the Robin Hood ethos and Steven has to respect it. He won’t send the sheriff after us he’ll eat drink and be merry.
Good for Toby Ascher, great guy, great ideas.
I couldn’t agree more. Nice guy.
“High concept,” because one would have to be high to buy this concept.
Wow. Hollywood’s been making movies based on age-old stories and legends all along. Sometimes they surprise, sometimes they don’t. The only thing shockingly unoriginal here are the usual posts by no-nothing haters.
Well said. These people would have whined about THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE FLY, THOMAS CROWN, THE THING (Kurt version).
Or that Hollywood keeps “re-imagining” movies that just came out a few years ago on the big screen and are constantly being retread on TV. The window betweeen ‘re-boots’ keeps getting smaller and smaller, and the more of these cliche horses they decide to beat to death, the less number of original ideas they take a chance on and the more audiences get used to this crap.
That’s why, douche. Now go back to rolling calls for your a-hole agent boss. Btw, where’s that double latte he ordered 10 minutes ago?
not a genius idea. fortunately these guys have a deal making machine in agent Mike Esola
No one will ever top the 1938 version with Errol Flynn directed by Michael Curtiz – perfect cast, perfect tone, great score. great filmmaking.
All the subsequent versions were not true to the legends. If Ridley Scott, a great filmmaker, called his hero Tom the Archer it would have been fine. Robin Hood it wasn’t.
Kevin Costner was great in Prince of Thieves that was a really good Robin Hood movie and he’s now suing Morgan Creek for profits he thinks he’s owed the movie is still making money.
The Ridley Scott Robin Hood is a good film,which got pounded by film critics like A.O.Scott and many others who printed that Scott made a right wing RH and therefore Scott made the wrong kind of RH movie. Crowe was the right guy to play Robin Hood but not according to the champions of the 1938 version, which is more a Big Golden Book version, with technicolor outfits. Beware new filmmakers cause the naysayers are already complaining.And the person who said the Crowe film should have had a different name/title attached to it isn’t wrong.
I know it’s all about individual taste and personal opinion. I love Indian cuisine, others hate it. You say “The Ridley Scott Robin Hood is a good film,” and I say ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS??!! It is one of the worst! It is dire! I watched it flop right out of the gate in Cannes! It deserved every knock and pound it received, and that goes too for Crowe’s dire performance. It has nothing to do with the 1938 version and everything to do with it stinking more than roadkill dragged home by the cat and hidden in a heating vent. But I’m glad you liked it.
Simply saying a movie “stinks” is always so incredibly informative.
This is an industry website so it’s pretty much gospel around here. If you want reviews use Google or watch it for yourself. But to save you time: Russell Crowe, a lousy script, Russell Crowe, very weird accents, Russell Crowe and a lousy script. It also attempted to tell Robin Hood’s backstory, as in how he became Robin Hood, so not really Robin Hood at all. Then there’s that Russell Crowe and script thing.
My favorite version of Robin Hood is actually not a movie at all, but the television series “Robin of Sherwood” from Kip Carpenter, that starred Michael Praed and Jason Connery. They were going to make a movie, but their plans were moving forward at the same time as two other versions of the legend, so they dropped it. Sad. This would have been my favorite.
Here’s a thought– you have to GO AWAY before an audience can MISS YOU.
Plus, WE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY KNOW THIS PARTICULARLY COMPLETELY WORN-OUT STORY. Without checking Wikipedia– Robin Hood fights evil Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham, wanting to bone Maid Marian until Richard the Lionheart returns in the third reel. He robs from the rich and gives to the poor with his band of Merry Men.
I suspect it will flop and be met with the collective “meh” that Jack the Giant Killer is receiving…But hopefully, this needless “reimagining” won’t be as bad as the incredibly recent Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood…where Robin was 50 and all him Merry Men were 60 in a sad attempt and make Russell Crowe look somewhat young.
How many of these revisionist fairy tales need to bomb before Hollywood wakes up and realizes audiences just don’t like these? Amazing.
From the WGA interview, Mike Esola basically puts it “I spend my day packaging. Finding a writer, a director, a producer, and selling it for as much money as I can”.
Energy on the other hand leaves a lot to be desired. I was with Brooklyn a few years ago and jumped ship to someone who cares more about the one-shot hippocket deal. The high-quality clients at Energy left with Adam. Ryan Condal would BLOW Ingelsby away on this “Merry Men” concept.
This is some B.S.
Has anyone ever heard of MEDIEVAL? The spec that was sold for 1M a few years ago, out from the team of Energy and WME? It was pitched as a “Dirty Dozen…”. Let’s see who the last assigned writer was on rewrites. Oh hey, Brad Ingelsby. So rather “be creative” as someone else mentioned, who’s to say that the plot/storyline is just recycled from that? Instead of Dirty Dozen in medieval times, let’s make it Dirty Dozen in Sherwood forest. See how easy that is? New Regency and Fox, if you’re still pursuing MEDIEVAL, keep an eye on this one.
Be original