Eleven years amounts to roughly two centuries in Hollywood years, so it should come as no surprise that the classic Alexandre Dumas novel The Count of Monte Cristo is being adapted for the big screen yet again. Heat Vision reports that David S. Goyer is taking the helm on the latest adaptation, which is being developed by Constantin Films. This classic text tells the story of Edmund Dantes, who is wrongfully imprisoned thanks to a jealous cousin who has eyes on his bride-to-be. While jailed on a prison island, Dantes meets an elderly inmate, who tells him of a hidden treasure on the island of Monte Cristo. Dantes eventually escapes the prison, making his way to the island where he uses the treasure to disguise himself as a count, so as to get revenge on the people who wronged him.
Monte Cristo has been adapted many times over the years, most recently in 2002 with Jim Caviezel in the Dantes role and Guy Pearce as the main villain. This new version, scripted by Michael Robert Johnson (also the screenwriter on Paul W.S. Anderson‘s upcoming Pompeii), is said to be more in tune with the new, Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes movies than previous adaptations, with some even calling it “19th Century Dark Knight”. Goyer, a screenwriter by trade, has been keeping busy in that medium, including next year’s Godzilla reboot (from Monsters director Gareth Edwards) and the upcoming Starz series DaVinci’s Demons.
I love 2002’s The Count of Monte Cristo, and it’s a good enough story that, if they stick to the source material well enough, will be hard to screw up. But at the same time I adore that feature adaptation, I loathe that the studio is comparing this to Batman — so that’s not exactly giving me much confidence. Since I’m feeling pretty good today, however, I’ll just go with cautious optimism; don’t want to kill my mood by getting doom and gloom on a movie that doesn’t exist yet. I’ll save that for someone more worthy of scorn.
Are you looking forward to a new Count of Monte Cristo adaptation?