From THR – Author Neil Gaiman has signed on to adapt Journey to the West (the legendary Chinese novel that tells the story of the Monkey King) into a series of big budget 3D films. Gaiman joins one of China’s biggest television producers, Zhang Jizhong, on the project.
Envisioned as a Lord of the Rings style endeavor – Zhang has said the price tag could be $300 million – Gaiman will pen an outline over the next month that will be used as a blueprint to attract investors. Zhang and Gaiman have met with James Cameron, who has agreed to help them figure out how to best convey the epic story on screen, and Guillermo del Toro is being courted to direct.
Gaiman is a long time fan of the material – he has been working on a book about Journey to the West since 2007 – and he now plans to turn his work for Zhang into an ending for his book.
China’s cultural ministry has long said that China, and not Hollywood, should be the one bringing Chinese legends to the screen, and given the success of Kung Fu Panda and The Forbidden Kingdom (the last film to feature The Monkey King), it’s safe to say there’s an international market for Journey to the West. And while there will be western influences on the project, the majority of funding is expected to come from China – this will very much be a Chinese film.
So it’s probably going to take a few years, but it sounds like these movies will be well worth the wait.
Book Description:
The Journey to the West is the English translation of Hsi-yu Chi, one of the most beloved classics of Chinese literature. The fantastic tale recounts the sixteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Hsüan-tsang (596-664), one of China’s most illustrious religious heroes, who journeyed to India with four animal disciples in quest of Buddhist scriptures. For nearly a thousand years, his exploits were celebrated and embellished in various accounts, culminating in the hundred-chapter Journey to the West, which combines religious allegory with romance, fantasy, humor, and satire.
Groan. I wish Neil Gaiman would stop ruining perfectly good stories with his awful film scripts and go back to comics.
Oh, I thought he was going to write a book, not do a movie.
He’s doing both, I believe!