Two items, one new-ish, one old-ish.
1. MTV Splash Page reported yesterday that Jim Uhls has finished the second draft of his script for Rex Mundi, and now the producers, including Johnny Depp, are looking for a director.
The film will star Depp as someone named Dr. Julien Sauniere, and the original comic book concerned “the Holy Grail and a descendant of Jesus Christ” — but all of that must have seemed too similar to The Da Vinci Code (2006), in which one of the key characters was named Jacques Saunière, so Uhls has reportedly “changed the story somewhat”. However, it looks like Julien will get to keep his name, which, like Jacques’s, was presumably based on that of Bérenger Saunière, a priest who figures prominently in the conspiracy theories that inspired The Da Vinci Code.
It also looks like the film will still take place in a parallel reality in which magic is real, Martin Luther was assassinated, and the Roman Catholic Church goes on to dominate the world with the help of European monarchies well into the 20th century.
2. The Hollywood Reporter announced a few weeks ago that Gale Anne Hurd is producing an adaptation of The Magdalena, a comic-book series about a woman who discovers that she’s the latest in a long line of holy female warriors descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Luke Goss, most recently seen playing the bad guy in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, will play Kristof, an agent who works with the Inquisition, an organization that helps these women do battle against various supernatural evils.
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