Bekmambetov Chases Moby Dick

Wanted director goes after white whale

Bekmambetov Chases Moby Dick

by Helen O'Hara |
Published on

Thar she blows! Why, it looks like.. a re-imagining of Herman Melville's classic tale of the white whale, Moby Dick. Yes, cetologists will be up in arms and Japanese whalers thoroughly pleased with the news that Timur Bekmambetov, he of **Night Watch **and Wanted fame, is set to reprise the appalling slander dealt to whale kind in the story of a ferocious and dangerous sperm whale (stop sniggering at the back).

The story, for those of you asleep during Year Nine English, is related by a sailor called Ishmael, and follows the obsession of one Captain Ahab with the aforementioned killer whale* and his hunt across the seven seas in pursuit of it.

Apparently this take will abandon the first-person narration, giving the makers more scope to show the havoc wrought on other shipping by the whale. Ahab will be more charismatic leader than brooding obsessive, and it will be an "action-adventure revenge story" with advanced visual effects. Which seems, y'know, kinda reductive of a very complex book, but hey! It'll look cool.

In any case, Bekmambetov is also working on a Wanted sequel, and screenwriters Adam Cooper and Bill Collage have only just started on the screenplay. But keep an eye out for sounding whales in the distance, because we're pretty sure there's one coming.

*Not actually a killer whale. But a whale that kills. Which killer whales don't, incidentally - unless you're a seal. Also, they're not actually whales but dolphins. Never say we don't teach you anything here.

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