Bryan Singer’s “Jack The Giant Killer” has landed a redraft by an Oscar-winning writer.
Heat Vision Blog broke the news today that Christopher McQuarrie, who won a well-deserved 1995 Best Screenplay Oscar for his work on Singer’s “The Usual Suspects” and also scripted the director’s last film — the Hitler would-be assassination thriller “Valkyrie” — was tapped to give the draft a new polish.
Mark Bomback (“Live Free or Die Hard”, “Race To Witch Mountain’) and Darren Lemke (“Gemini Man,” “Shrek Forever After”) had written prior drafts and now McQuarrie is looking to step in and take a shot at it. If the film is indeed shooting in July as previously reported, it will likely mean McQuarrie is not doing a page 1 rewrite, but more of a script polish.
“Jack The Giant Killer” centers around a war between giants and humans set off by the kidnapping of a princess, and the young farmer who journeys to the giant kingdom on a rescue mission. The film is confirmed to begin shooting in London and Iceland this summer and Singer has (naturally) considered shooting the film in 3D (we’ve also heard that Jake Gyllenhaal may somehow be involved in the cast, file that one for later).
Aside from readying ‘Jack’ for likely 2011 release, Singer will also produce franchise cash-in “X-Men: First Class,” alongside Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg. It’s nice to see Singer moving away from familiar territory, though ‘Jack’ still remains a bit of an oddity for him (and for us). We’ll be keeping an eye on this as official casting news begins to spring to life.