As the dust settles over the Mel Gibson incident, other directors and producers are slowly picking up the work Mel has missed out on.
First up is a re-jig of wartime epic, The Dam Busters, which Gibson was in line to direct and possibly star in: step in Peter Jackson.
PJ has inked on the dotted line to produce the movie, with King Kong animator Christian Rivers in the big chair. The original flick, shot in 1954, followed the true story about how the British created the bouncing bombs, designed to take out German dams in WWII.
The film was based on a novel by Paul Brickhill, so Jackson sniffed out the rights while making Lord Of The Rings, only to find that Mel Gibson and Icon had them sewn up.
“He came back and said that Icon had the rights and that Mel Gibson was going to direct and possibly act in it, obviously that didn't happen.”
Production will get rolling on the movie next year, with a budget in the region of $30-40 million. Jackson told Tinseltown trade paper Screen International that the remake would be “as authentic as possible and as close to the spirit of the original as possible.”
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