Brett Ratner has a thing for Hercules. No, it’s not a scandalous tabloidy story; it’s the fact that the Rat is seriously pursuing a version of the hero’s tale now being developed by MGM.

Vulture reports that Ratner is circling the idea of a project based on Hercules: The Thracian Wars, a Radical Publishing comic book by Steve Moore. The film’s been in development for a while now, but never quite found traction. Coincidentally, the rights are owned by Spyglass Entertainment, which just so happens to be the company now in charge of MGM. And now they apparently have Ryan Condal – who wrote an adaptation of Paradise Lost for Alex Proyas to direct – is busy getting a new draft of the Hercules script ready.

It’s not the first time Ratner’s name has been brought up in association with a Hercules project either – you might recall that last year, he was linked to a take on the tale being produced by Avi Lerner, but that story was quickly shot down by his publicist, who insisted that he’d read the script but wasn’t committed. And he did instead get to work on comedy crime drama Tower Heist, which will be out later this year.

Now, though, it looks like the siren call of the warrior is once more whispering in his ear. And given how big swords and sandals are this year with a new Conan and Immortals in the cinema and Game of Thrones all over the TV, it’s not shocking that he might want to carve a slice of that action for himself. We’ll have to wait and see if this steps out of the rumour shadows and into the news light, though.