Twentieth Century Fox is moving forward with a bigscreen adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels, with Jack Black taking on the title role as his next project.
Rob Letterman (Shark Tale) has signed on to direct the contemporary reimagining of the classic Jonathan Swift tale.
Story centers on Lemuel Gulliver, a free-spirited travel writer who, on an assignment to the Bermuda Triangle, suddenly finds himself a giant among men when he washes ashore on the hidden island of Lilliput, home to a population of industrious, yet tiny, people.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall helmer Nicholas Stoller and Joe Stillman (Shrek) penned the screenplay.
Fox has kept development of the project under wraps — a common practice with public domain-based material — even though Letterman has been attached to helm for some time. But the studio quickly greenlit the film once Black committed. Shooting will start in March; locations are still being set.
Fox-based John Davis is producing alongside Black’s Electric Dynamite shingle and Ben Cooley, Black’s partner at the shingle.
Swift’s 1726 novel has spawned a number of bigscreen and smallscreen projects, including a 1996 miniseries starring Ted Danson.
Credit: Variety
