{"id":2035,"date":"2008-09-24T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2008-09-24T16:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/?p=2035"},"modified":"2009-10-20T03:05:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-20T10:05:00","slug":"maybe-theyll-devise-an-origin-for-ahab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/maybe-theyll-devise-an-origin-for-ahab\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe They’ll Devise an “Origin” for Ahab…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m going to let a September 22 Variety<\/em> story<\/a> speak, offensively, for itself, because words fail me, unless it be to note that the verb to revere<\/em> clearly doesn’t mean what I thought it did:<\/p>\n

Universal Pictures has made a splashy preemptive buy of “Moby Dick,” a reimagining of the Herman Melville whale tale that Timur Bekmambetov (“Wanted”) will direct. Studio paid high six figures to Adam Cooper and Bill Collage to pen the screenplay.<\/p>\n

The writers revere Melville’s original text, but their graphic novel-style version will change the structure. Gone is the first-person narration by the young seaman Ishmael, who observes how Ahab’s obsession with killing the great white whale overwhelms his good judgment as captain.<\/p>\n

This change will allow them to depict the whale’s decimation of other ships prior to its encounter with Ahab’s Pequod<\/em>, and Ahab will be depicted more as a charismatic leader than a brooding obsessive.<\/p>\n

“Our vision isn’t your grandfather’s Moby Dick<\/em>, ” Cooper said. “This is an opportunity to take a timeless classic and capitalize on the advances in visual effects to tell what at its core is an action-adventure revenge story.”<\/p>\n

Scott Stuber is producing with Jim Lemley and Cormac and Marianne Wibberley.<\/p>\n

Both Stuber and Bekmambetov have deals at Universal. Bekmambetov will look to apply the visual flourish he displayed on the U summer hit Wanted<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“We wanted to take a graphic novel sensibility to a classic narrative,” said Collage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m going to let a September 22 Variety story speak, offensively, for itself, because words fail me, unless it be to note that the verb to revere clearly doesn’t mean what I thought it did: Universal Pictures has made a splashy preemptive buy of “Moby Dick,” a reimagining of the Herman Melville whale tale that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-authors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2035"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6318,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions\/6318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}