The story of Marco Polo has been brought towards the screen before and will most likely be adapted many times in the future. The following film about the explorer could be directed by Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) as Warner Bros. has attached the director to a task depending on a pitch by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, who will write a script depending on Polo’s adventures.
The key word here is likely adventure. Variety says the Cooper/Collage task is “seen as a fantasy-adventure instead of a biopic,” which is actually pretty appropriate provided that the authorship of some of Polo’s tales is in doubt. Cooper told the trade “We see this as something that takes place in the Orient of our imagination amid the cultural clash of the East and also the West.” Hey, the fictionalized take on Polo worked for Neil Gaiman, so why not for these guys?
The Venetian Marco Polo spent 24 years journeying to and residing within the court of Kublai Khan, who ruled the Mongol Empire in China. When he returned to Venice he discovered the city at war with Genoa, and he was imprisoned in a Genoese cell. There he dictated his adventures to an additional inmate (who likely embellished Polo’s stories and added his personal) and they had been eventually published in numerous editions and under a number of titles, including The Travels of Marco Polo and Il Milione.
Whilst Marco Polo might have appropriated other travelers’ tales as his own, his book became the very first main representation of Asian culture in Europe. He and his family had been hardly the very first to go to China, but the book allowed tales of China to spread.
Prior to this, Francis Lawrence will direct Water for Elephants, an adaptation of the novel by Sara Gruen and scripted by Richard LaGravenese. Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz star within the depression-era tale about 21-year old Jacob (Pattinson), who joins a second-rate circus right after the death of his parents. Having as soon as planned to become a veterinarian, Jacob is entrusted with the outfit’s mangy menagerie. He has to deal with impresario Uncle Al and animal trainer August (Waltz), both of whom are crazy and eccentric. He falls in love with August’s young wife Marlena (Witherspoon), which naturally leads to trouble.
And what of the last Marco Polo task we noticed about? The 1 John Woo is or was fascinated in making? Great question. Haven’t heard a whiff about it since last year, at which place it just seemed to become something in development by which he’s interested. Ironically at that place I stated that there was most likely a great movie in the story of Marco Polo, if not necessarily from Woo. I really feel a lot more or much less the same about Lawrence. Maybe Water for Elephants will change my mind.
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