The Wedding Singer and Around The World In 80 Days filmmaker Frank Coraci is set to direct The Legend Of Sinbad for The Expendables outfit Millennium and Middle East firm Eagle Films.
The big canvas English-language film will be based on the iconic One Thousand And One Nights character Sinbad, a fictional Middle East mariner who over the course of seven voyages across the seas east of Africa and south of Asia has spectacular adventures encountering monsters, magic and various supernatural phenomena. The film is expected to have a cast of Middle East origin, including in the lead role.
Screenplay comes from Andrew Cosby, writer of Lionsgate’s upcoming Hellboy reboot and creator of Syfy series Eureka, and Hank Woon (It Came From The Desert). Shoot is being lined up for this fall with location scouting underway.
Producers are Yariv Lerner (Acts Of Vengeance), Lloyd Levin (Hellboy) and Bea Levin, Les Weldon (The Hitman’s Bodyguard) and Jamal Sannan (Wilaneh). Executive producers are Avi Lerner, Boaz Davidson, Jeffrey Greenstein and Jonathan Yunger, alongside Lati Grobman and Christa Campbell of Campbell Grobman Films. Millennium will handle sales.
Eagle has long-distributed Millennium’s films in the Middle East but this marks a first production partnership between the two. The multi-faceted company is a distributor, exhibitor and producer and one of the leading players in the region with a significant local market share. Releases have included The Hitman’s Bodyguard, The Hunger Games, The Expendables, The Wolf of Wall Street and Gangs Of New York.
“It is an exciting time to take the long standing partnership between Millennium and Eagle Films and create an epic action-adventure film rooted in Arabian culture,” said Eagle Films CEO, Jamal Sannan. “It’s a total synergy between Hollywood and the Middle East and this is only the beginning.”
Coraci, the regular Adam Sandler collaborator whose recent credits include The Ridiculous 6 and Steve Coogan pic Hot Air, said, “It’s a dream to be helming The Legend Of Sinbad with this amazing team. The rich culture, setting, and themes of this mythic tale allow me a spectacular cinematic canvas to create a mind-blowing universe filled with fantastical creatures and adventures. Sinbad will be a swashbuckling fun ride, packed with emotion and big laughs. It’s the kind of movie you must see on the big screen.” Additional credits for the Click and The Waterboy filmmaker in this mould include Around The World In 80 Days and Zookeeper.
Added Millennium President Jeffrey Greenstein, “In an era where a globally united community is rapidly gaining traction, it has never been so important to use the gift of storytelling to remind each and every one of us that we are all brothers and sisters and that despite our differences, we all yearn for and deserve the same things – love, laughter and freedom.”