We had to check our calendars to make sure it wasn’t April Fool’s Day already with this one.
Warner Bros are looking to turn Leonardo Da Vinci (yeah, the artist) into a big screen, blockbusting action-adventure hero.
Still with us? Okay. Tipped as a project similar in tone to Bubba Ho-Tep and the in-production Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter , a treatment entitled Leonardo Da Vinci And The Soldiers Of Forever has been snapped up by the studio.
It comes from producer Adrian Askarieh (who steered 2007’s Hitman , oops), who is joining forces with Departed producers Roy Lee and Doug Davison to bring the concept to cinemas.
Da Vinci, obviously, is the Renaissance man/painter/inventor/architect born in 1452, who painted the Mona Lisa, and provided the inspiration for Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code .
Soldiers Of Forever reportedly “re-imagines” Da Vinci as the member of a secret society who inadvertently finds himself embroiled in a supernatural quest, and facing demons, secret codes, fallen angels and lost civilisations.
Something’s definitely happening in Hollywood at the moment, what with an explosion of sand-and-sandals epics all making their way to our screens. Not to mention a trend for reinventing some of our most famous historical figures. Must be something in the Evian.
Askarieh is scouting out a writer at the moment (any takers?). Next up: a movie that turns Florence Nightingale into a femme fatale who is really a demon-hunting-secret-agent-renegade-priness.
Daft or daring? You decide...
