Sommers Threatening To Ruin, Err. . . Make A New TARZAN Movie

Director Stephen Sommers, whose Van Helsing ruined anything good about Universal Studios great monster movie legacy and whose upcoming live-action adaptation GI Joe will do to the same to the popular 1980s cartoon series, is in talks to ruin another classic character of American pop culture- Tarzan.

Variety is reporting that Sommers is currently in negotiations with Warner Brothers and Jerry Weintraub to helm a new film based on Edgar Rice Burroughs classic jungle hero. Stuart Beattie, who penned the screenplay for Sommer’s GI Joe, is being named as the one who will write the script for the new Tarzan film.

There is no word as to when Warners wants to have his film in production, but I’m guessing that they will probably wait and see how Sommer’s GI Joe does next summer before giving the film a greenlight. Of course, Warners release calendar over the next few years is still looking a little lite on big blockbuster pictures, and they’re probably hedging their bets by placing as many projects into development as possible in order to have a good selection from which to choose to put into active production.

Hopefully, though, this will be one of those projects that die on the vine before any serious money is spent. While I like Sommers’ first Mummy picture, his second began what appeared to be a real slide into absolute stupidity in his films, where things would happen not for any discernable reason other than they look kind of cool. Although I can’t really pass final judgement on GI Joe, the draft for the film that I read by Beattie has numerous problems and there are specific moments that play to Sommers weakness of not knowing when too much is too much. recently, Sommers spent two years developing a new version of another pulp hero, Flash Gordon, only to have the project fall apart and the rights revert back to their owner.