Movie fans everywhere have always wanted a reunion of Steven Spielberg and Michael Crichton collaborating again since the Dinosaur days (Jurassic Park, The Lost World) but not quite like this, when one of them has left us first. USA TODAY reported that Spielberg wants to produce and direct Chrichton’s last novel PIRATE LATITUDES which is posthumously published and will hit the shelves this coming November 24th. The great author died November 2008 from Cancer.
The plot is set in “Jamaica in 1665 is a rough outpost of the English crown, a minor colony holding out against the vast supremacy of the Spanish empire. Port Royal, Jamaica’s capital, a cut-throat town of taverns, grog shops, and bawdy houses, is devoid of London’s luxuries”
Dreamworks doesn’t want this to be a copycat of Pirates of the Caribbean, the studio doesn’t want none of that Disney supernatural Johnny Depp charm. This one will be based in reality. It’s described as a mission story, to “infiltrate Port Royal, one of the world’s richest and most notorious cities, and raid a Spanish galleon filled with treasure” and the audience would get to watch what it may have been like to live in that island at that time.
Scribe David Koepp who wrote screenplays for many Spielberg movies (Jurassic Park, The Lost World, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones 4) will pen the adaptation. Dreamworks wants to wait for Koepp’s script before setting production schedule and the movie’s release date.
I think only Spielberg can really capture Crichton’s literary imagination because other Crichton’s novels that have been turned into movies were less than satisfactory (Timeline, Congo, Sphere)
