Deadline has learned Sony has picked up Robert Rodriguez's planned live-action version of the Ralph Bakshi animated movie FIRE AND ICE. We showed you some concept art for the project back in 2011, and in 2012 Rodriguez said he wanted to start working on the film after finishing SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR.
Sony is hoping Rodriguez's FIRE AND ICE will launch a fantasy adventure franchise "informed by the dreamlike worlds Frazetta poured into his paintings," and "the film will be truer to a standard film than Sin City." Robert Rodriguez says if they can get script right in the next couple of months, he should be able to start preproduction by the end of spring or start of summer.
Synopsis for the original 1983 movie:
The evil ice lord Nekron and his mother Juliana seek to conquer the known world, ravaging the land and all people in their way with their ice glacier as they approach Fire Keep, a volcanic kingdom and the last stronghold against them. Juliana's sub-human ape men kidnap King Jarol's daughter, the beautiful virgin Princess Teegra, prompting the young warrior Larn, last a tribe killed by Nekron and his forces, to go on a desperate quest for her. Larn's only ally is the mysterious warrior Darkwolf.
Robert Rodriguez's last few films haven't been great, but I still think he's a talented director, and I'm interested in seeing what he will do with a live-action take on Ralph Bakshi's FIRE AND ICE.
