If you’re anything like Empire, then everything you know about the Knights Templar, you’ll have learned from movies like Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure. So we know that they were a group of Knights who fought in the Crusades, and that they: protected the Holy Grail; helped cover up the fact that Jesus Christ HAD A FAMILY; and did whatever it was that they did in National Treasure.
But did you know that they also FOUGHT A VAMPIRE ARMY, who were hellbent on destroying the Holy Grail?!?!
Well, of course they didn’t, but that’s the ridiculous and, it has to be said, ridiculously cool premise behind a spec script called The Knights Templar that’s just been picked up by Universal. (Although we’d call it Knights Of The Living Dead.)
The project was written by Adam Torchia and Justin Stanley, based on an idea by Ian Rothkerch, a friend of Stanley’s who sadly passed away several years ago. The duo began working on the script, and now it’s been picked up, with Wanted and Nightwatch director Timur Bekmambetov to produce, along with Marc Platt. So don’t be totally surprised if Bekmambetov – who has history with vampires on the big screen – ends up directing, too.
And hopefully this will go into production soon. Until this day, Empire didn’t know that the one thing stopping our lives from being complete was seeing knights kick the crap out of vampires – but now that we know that it is, frankly this can’t come soon enough.