Spielberg returns to Crichton territory with 'Pirate Latitudes' (USA, THR, VAR)

By R. Kinsey Lowe

DreamWorks Studios has acquired the movie rights to the late Michael Crichton's "Pirate Latitudes," which will be published Nov. 24 through HarperCollins, for Steven Spielberg to produce and possibly direct. Screenwriter David Koepp has come aboard the project as screenwriter.

The development was first reported Thursday by USA Today and subsequently by Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, neither of which acknowledged the newspaper had the story first. Hollywood Wiretap's Thursday morning newsletter pointed to the USA Today item the same day it appeared on the newpaper's web site.

Spielberg, Crichton and Koepp have collaborated on several projects, including the movie versions of Crichton's novels "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World." Koepp adapted both of those and Spielberg directed the movies.

Crichton, Spielberg and producer John Wells also collaborated on the long-running NBC series "ER."

DreamWorks described "Pirate Latitudes," the studio's first development project since it finalized its financial partnership with Reliance Entertainment, as the tale of "a daring plan to infiltrate Port Royal, one of the world's richest and most notorious cities, and raid a Spanish galleon filled with treasure," USA Today reported.

"It's a mission movie, and we see it through the prism of what it might have been like to live on the island during that time," Spielberg's partner at DreamWorks told the newspaper.

Koepp, who like Spielberg is represented by CAA, also worked on Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" and "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull" and wrote and directed "Ghost Town" for DreamWorks last year, the Reporter noted.

Spielberg is in the process of completing "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn" for Paramount and Sony. The director is slated to follow "Tintin" with a remake of "Harvey," based on Mary Chase's Pulitzer-winning play about a man and his titular invisible friend, a 6�-foot-tall rabbit. James Stewart starred in the previous 1950 film version.

Coincidentally, USA Today also noted, DreamWorks has entered a new distribution deal at Disney, which has its own pirate-themed franchise based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, another installation of which is planned for 2011.