In this climate of studios cutting back budgets and lowering quotes for talent and creative types, it’s good to see that someone can still get studios to crank open their wallets and squeeze out a few shekels to option scripts. That someone is Jerry Bruckheimer, who has just jointly bought up Terry Rossio and Bill Marsilii’s space adventure spec Lightspeed with Disney.
The film’s plot will follow the adventures of a young pilot who wins a place on the Earth Interstellar Racing Team, speeding across a galaxy that is teetering on the brink of war. So, a blend of Speed Racer and Star Wars, then?
As Variety reports, it’s an unusually rich sale for a screenplay, given that there’s no A-list talent attached to star or direct. But then Rossio is a Bruckheimer regular who co-wrote the Pirates movies for the producer. And he does have form with Marsilii, who worked on Déjà Vu with him – a film that was one of the richest script sales ever thanks to Disney’s Touchstone Pictures and a certain Mr J Bruckheimer.
With Bruckheimer Films co-producing the pic, it’s planned as a big live-action adventure that might just arrive in cinemas in shiny 3D. First though, they’ll need to lock down a cast and a director.