Although I always claimed it could never happen, in a deep, dark, nook of my heart I feared that it probably would. And now it has. Deep breath… but it looks like we’re set to see a movie of Paradise Lost. Yes, not a biopic of the goth metal band, but of the 17th Century epic poem by John Milton.

A recent article in the New York Times has confirmed that, at the very least, the script is in the development stage.  Rumours are abound that it will leap into production with possible release this year. And although details are pretty slim, it seems that CGI will play a huge element. Are we to expect something like Sin City or 300? It seems that way, with Daniel Craig and Heath Ledger being picked as the ideal actors to play the poem’s protagonisit, none other than Satan.

Personally, I always felt that Milton’s poem could be made into a film. Or more accurately, a good story could be extracted from the dense text. But I always felt animation would be the better option, as opposed to people on a green-screen. There’s too much supernatural shape-shifting involved to try and incorporate actors.

But the real difficulty lies in the script. Adapting Milton’s great work requires a sensitivity to the language of the text, the subleties of character, the satirical subtext, etc. It’s easy to pick out a bit of action and turn it into a one-dimensional blockbuster. And while newcomer scriptwriters Philip de Blasi and Byron Willinger have a lot of passion and dedication for realising the poem, producer Vincent Newman pretty much confirmed by concerns in the NY Times article. Regarding the Adam and Eve scenes, Newnam claims “there’s the nudity problem… which would be a big problem for a big studio”. The solution? Less of Adam and Eve and focus on the “war movie” that is the battle between Satan and God.   Err… doesn’t the title suggest that Adam and Eve, inhabitants of the PARADISE that was LOST, should play a large role? Comments from Newman like this make me fear that we’re going to see plenty of fighting and gore, as opposed to the melancholy that pervades through the original text. Nevertheless, Newman wants Satan to be portrayed like Henry in Goodfellas (“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be the devil”).

The film’s chosen director, Scott Derrickson, doesn’t fill me with delight either. He’s known for The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Hellraiser: Inferno, not exactly known for their complexity, or well, for being good in any way.

I don’t know about you, but I’m hoping that the project will eventually get dropped… due to development hell!