Alex Proyas [Knowing, I, Robot, The Crow] is set to direct Legendary Pictures’ Paradise
Lost, an adaptation of John
Milton’s 17th-century English poem originally
published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual
lines of verse. The movie is about the epic war in heaven between
archangels Michael and Lucifer, and will be developed as an
action vehicle that will include aerial warfare, possibly shot in 3D, says Variety.
Legendary’s Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni will produce along with Vincent Newman [A Man Apart] through
his eponymous banner. The Script has been in motion for quite some time with Stuart Hazeldine developing the primary
draft that was originally written by Byron
Willinger and Philip de Blasi.
Lawrence Kasdan provided a polish as well as Ryan Condal, who delivered the most recent draft.
The story is separated
into twelve books, broken down shortly after initial publication, following the
model of the Aeneid
of Virgil. Milton’s story
contains two arcs: one of Satan [Lucifer] and another of Adam and Eve.
The story of Satan follows the epic convention of large-scale warfare. It
begins after Satan and the other rebel angels have been defeated and cast by
God into Hell, or as it is also
called in the poem, Tartarus.
Satan employs his rhetorical skill to organize his followers; he is aided by
his lieutenants Mammon
and Beelzebub. Belial and Moloch are also present.
At the end of the debate, Satan volunteers himself to poison the newly created Earth. He braves the
dangers of the Abyss
alone in a manner reminiscent of Odysseus
or Aeneas. Milton’s
epic is generally considered one of the greatest literary works in the English
language.