John Milton's 1667 epic poem, Paradise Lost, contains everything an epic film would ever hope to have: drama, THE war between good and evil, mythological creatures, and at its core a tremendously dramatic human story about failure, punishment, and redemption.
Consequently, it should not be a big surprise that such a story would be made into a live-action film, it was only a question of when. According to Hollywood Reporter, the answer to that question is soon, and the film will be produced by Legendary Pictures.
Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) will direct the film and will also help develop the screenplay, which was originally written by Byron Willinger and Phil DeBlasi, and is currently being worked on by Stuart Hazeldine. Vincent Newman (A Man Apart) will produce the adaptation.
Aside from having a very suitable name, it appears that Legendary Pictures will be giving suitable treatment to the film, aiming for a $100 million budget.
The chairman and CEO of Legendary, Thomas Tull, recently said:
"This is the war that started all wars, and it will certainly have an epic feel to it. If you want to get biblical, when God needed something done, He sent in angels. And these can be pretty fierce creatures. So if you think about what that epic battle looked like and try to realize visually what it would have looked like, it can potentially be pretty incredible."
For those who are curious about the source material, John Milton's Paradise Lost can be read in its entirety, on Literature.org:
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze
Far round illumin'd hell: highly they rag'd
Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arm's
Clash'd on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heav'n.
