WB Begets Movie About 900-Year-Old with Very Particular Set of Skills
Hoping to capitalize on all the hot buzz surrounding the Bible's oldest man, Warner Bros. has hired writer Arash Amel to re-work plans to develop the character of Methuselah into an action-adventure hero whose 900+ years on Earth have only grown his awesome killing skills.
As reported by Variety, Woman in Black's James Watkins is attached to direct the film, and himself wrote a script draft that the studio did not find to be an at all satisfactory telling of how Methuselah ostensibly "used his time on the planet to develop an unparalleled set of survival skills." So now Arash Amel will give it a shot, starting over with a "page-one rewrite" that will hopefully make right our lack of adequate Methuselah entertainment tailored to males 13-35.
For whatever reason, Amel seems to be becoming Warner's go-to guy for saving dismal-sounding action premises: earlier this year, he was recruited to write an I Am Legend sequel that will ignore how Will Smith died and carry on with that being a Will Smith franchise. That script is still the studio's priority, and Amel will only move on to Methuselah once he's finished up that homework. Hopefully it won't take too long, because we're not all going to live 900 years, and wouldn't it be a shame to die having never see a long-bearded Liam Neeson decapitate a man with a shepherd's crook.
(Note: Clint Eastwood is in no way attached to this film. I just thought he looked about 1000.)
