HOLLYWOOD NEWS

Sep 23, 2008–Universal will remake “Moby Dick,” in a reimagining of the Herman Melville whale tale that Russian director Timur Bekmambetov (“Wanted”) will direct.

The studio has paid high six figures to Adam Cooper and Bill Collage for the script. Their graphic novel-style version will change the structure of Melville’s original text. They will ot use 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.

This change allows them to depict the whale’s decimation of other ships prior to its encounter with Ahab’s Pequod, and Ahab will be depicted as a charismatic leader rather than a brooding obsessive man. They see their idea as 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.

Scott Stuber is producing with Jim Lemley and Cormac and Marianne Wibberley.

Stuber and Bekmambetov have deals at Universal, and Bekmambetov is expected to use the same innovative visuals he displayed in directing Angelina Jolie's hit vehicle, “Wanted.”

Bekmambetov is developing a sequel to the Jolie summer starrer and is also mobilizing and producing a slate of modestly budgeted Russian-language films for Universal’s offshore operations.

Cooper and Collage received credit on the comedy “Accepted,” and more recently rewrote the untitled Trump Heist movie, Tom Bezucha's “The People¬ís House” and McG's “Nightcrawlers.”