edonline
07-01-2004, 01:07 PM
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=filmNews&storyID=5562786
'Punisher' Director Gets Antsy for 'Naked' Remake
Thu Jul 1, 2004 05:26 AM ET
By Liza Foreman
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Jonathan Hensleigh, who most recently directed and co-wrote "The Punisher," has signed on for a contemporary remake of the 1950s adventure film "The Naked Jungle."
The original version starred Charlton Heston as a chocolate plantation owner in the Amazon whose property is threatened by a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants. Eleanor Parker played a mail-order bride from New Orleans who joins the fight against the ants and in doing so weakens her new husband's resolve to send her back home.
"We thought that they never quite maximized the original," said Jim Jacks, who will produce the project via his Paramount-based Alphaville banner. "It's a great main character who is out there fighting nature. Jonathan has been involved in a number of the big adventure movies of the last decade, and his love for it is something that has inspired us."
The ants also will get a makeover: "The film will deal with some of the mutations of insects that have occurred in the last few decades in the Amazon region," Jacks said. "They are finding different types of insects and insects that are becoming larger and stronger as they become resistant to pesticides. Some of their natural predators have become extinct because of the rain forests being destroyed. There are entire cultures built around the ants down there -- native cultures that look toward the ants, which come in all different shapes and sizes."
The remake is conceived as a tentpole disaster movie with Alphaville looking at a 2005 shoot.
Hensleigh's writing credits also include "Armageddon" and "The Saint."
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
'Punisher' Director Gets Antsy for 'Naked' Remake
Thu Jul 1, 2004 05:26 AM ET
By Liza Foreman
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Jonathan Hensleigh, who most recently directed and co-wrote "The Punisher," has signed on for a contemporary remake of the 1950s adventure film "The Naked Jungle."
The original version starred Charlton Heston as a chocolate plantation owner in the Amazon whose property is threatened by a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants. Eleanor Parker played a mail-order bride from New Orleans who joins the fight against the ants and in doing so weakens her new husband's resolve to send her back home.
"We thought that they never quite maximized the original," said Jim Jacks, who will produce the project via his Paramount-based Alphaville banner. "It's a great main character who is out there fighting nature. Jonathan has been involved in a number of the big adventure movies of the last decade, and his love for it is something that has inspired us."
The ants also will get a makeover: "The film will deal with some of the mutations of insects that have occurred in the last few decades in the Amazon region," Jacks said. "They are finding different types of insects and insects that are becoming larger and stronger as they become resistant to pesticides. Some of their natural predators have become extinct because of the rain forests being destroyed. There are entire cultures built around the ants down there -- native cultures that look toward the ants, which come in all different shapes and sizes."
The remake is conceived as a tentpole disaster movie with Alphaville looking at a 2005 shoot.
Hensleigh's writing credits also include "Armageddon" and "The Saint."
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter