Ridley Scott Direct Treasure Island Film with Hugh Jackman

A major new film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure novel "Treasure Island" is in development, with director Ridley Scott attached to helm and Hugh Jackman set to star as the iconic, duplicitous pirate Long John Silver. The screenplay will be written by Jack Thorne, the writer behind the acclaimed series "Adolescence."

The project is currently without a studio, as the package of Scott, Jackman, and Thorne is being shopped to multiple distributors, with a competitive bidding war anticipated. The film was initially pitched to 20th Century Studios, but the studio, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Pictures, declined the project. According to reports, the studio passed due to its ongoing efforts to revive its own pirate franchise, "Pirates of the Caribbean," and a desire to avoid internal competition within the same genre.

Published in 1883, "Treasure Island" is one of the most enduring and commercially successful novels in history. The story follows young Jim Hawkins, who discovers a map to the buried treasure of the notorious pirate Captain Flint. He joins an expedition to recover it, unaware that the ship's cook, Long John Silver, is secretly a pirate plotting a...