That tousled-haired, chimp-loving, Lord of The Rings Peter Jackson is set to produce a new version of the classic British war flick The Dam Busters. Jackson – who’s currently working on an adaptation of Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones - told Screen Daily that the new movie would be "as authentic as possible and as close to the spirit of the original as possible". The director first hit upon the idea of remaking the film prior to securing the rights to the Lord Of The Rings trilogy in the mid-nineties.
The Dam Busters was released in 1954 and starred Paul Brickhill as Barnes Wallis and Richard Todd as Guy Gibson. The movie tells the true story of the bouncing bomb – the top-secret device used to wipe out German damns during World War II.
Jackson went onto described the appeal of the project: "There's that wonderful mentality of the British during the war - that heads-down, persevering, keep-on-plugging-away mentality which is the spirit of Dam Busters." The movie will begin filming next year. The budget has been set at $30-40million (£16-21million).
Mel Gibson was originally rumoured to direct and act in an updated version of The Dam Busters.