ROTTEN TOMATOES: Mike Newell Drops Early Prince of Persia Details!

Mike Newell Drops Early Prince of Persia Details!

What's Stonehenge got to do with Sands of Time?

by Fred Topel | November 12, 2007

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Only five days into development on Prince of Persia, director Mike Newell made the last rounds of press for his current film, Love in the Time of Cholera. When asked about the video game movie, he could barely contain his excitement for the material.

"It's not a video game movie," Newell said. "It's a great story. If you had read the script, you would know that it wasn't a video game. It's very exciting and it's immensely romantic and it's like Lost Horizon. It takes you to somewhere you've never been."

The film's script comes courtesy of game creator Jordan Mechner and Day After Tomorrow writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff, based on the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time entry in the multi-game series. The story in Sands of Time involves the titular prince, a magical dagger, a giant sand-filled hourglass, and loads of adventure.

Newell has an assistant playing the video games to brief him on key details. "There's so much that will happen with that story because it's 1300 years ago. This girl who was actually a kind of priest... I'm sorry, I've been on it five days. I'm full of f***ing ideas. It'll be terrific."

One last tidbit before his publicist pulled him away involves an international landmark. "You know what Stonehenge is? Stonehenge is a machine that tells you that the world will survive because every year the sun comes up in exactly the same place."

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(1-20 of 46 posts) | Reply

rgallitan writes:
on Nov 12 2007 12:31 AM

Okay, the last bit sounded a little, uh... drug-induced. But otherwise my excitement remains undampened.

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Ruckas356 writes:
on Nov 12 2007 01:09 AM

With disney behind this, i think this will be a great film. it was a great game, i mean a great game, for real. This will set the standard for video game movies mark my words!!

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jacog writes:
on Nov 12 2007 02:00 AM

I hope it's both a good film and a financial success... then perhaps we'll see more Jordan Mechner in the form of a film adaptation of The Last Express.

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stg writes:
on Nov 12 2007 02:47 AM

This is going to be great can't wait, obviously Newell is very excited and will put his best effort to it. Its also great he is taking into consideration the key elements of the video game, which so far every game to movie adaptation has failed to do(Resident Evil). So hopefully this will finally break the mould, and i hope they cast a good and suitable actor in the role of the prince.

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plughole writes:
on Nov 12 2007 03:08 AM

his assistant plays video games for his job. Tough life.

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jacog writes:
on Nov 12 2007 03:48 AM

In reply to this comment (#1270814)
stg: Haha, yah... a suitable actor. :) I do hope it's not flavour-of-the-week Shia LaBoeuf (isn't La Boeuf French for "the beef"?) again. He seems to be getting a ton of work all of a sudden. They should find someone with at least moderately appropriate ethnicity.

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Vortex&Vertigo writes:
on Nov 12 2007 04:35 AM

I like when he says that the movie is not a video game. Maybe with that approach we can finally see a good movie based on one.

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jasperoosterveld writes:
on Nov 12 2007 05:09 AM

Its so funny that they got Mike Newell for a videogame movie, when did that ever happened? I hope the movie is going to be good, it has potential :)

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jacog writes:
on Nov 12 2007 05:13 AM

Well, if you had to pull a few names of "directors of video game adaptations" out your rear, then you end up with names like Uwe Boll and Paul WS Anderson... not good. In order for something like this to earn the respect of the masses, you need a respect-worthy director, a respect-worthy script, and a respect-worthy cast. So far we have two out of three on this one.

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dahluzz writes:
on Nov 12 2007 06:44 AM

newell: "so bucky, what plot point have you come across in today's playing?"

assistant: "uhh... well I kind of got stuck on this one part where I was sposta, like, run on the walls or something. I mean, it's a really hard game sir, but I think that's what will make it such a great movie. I'll probly need a few more weeks to fight my way through the first one."

newell: "smashing job, bucky old chap. I'm SO relieved I don't actually have to PLAY that dreadful thing."

bucky: best. job. EVER.

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The_Duckling writes:
on Nov 12 2007 08:55 AM

dahluzz: you said it all, lol!

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therereturn writes:
on Nov 12 2007 08:56 AM

Uwe Boll is somewhere reading this article going, "Oh, ****. He's actually going to make it good...."

His assistant doesn't have the best job, by the way. Unless Newell is also planning on adapting Halo and Oblivion.

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Rockslide writes:
on Nov 12 2007 09:10 AM

I've got to throw it in every thread mentioning Prince of Persia, someone else mentioned it in the other thread but I have to help push it, haha.

Sendhil Ramamurthy should be the lead!

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stg writes:
on Nov 12 2007 11:23 AM

its the "Prince of Persia" for godsake not the "Prince of India", the princess is indian maybe Sendhil Ramamurthy could play her(geez). Play the game dude and get the facts straight.

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minderbinder writes:
on Nov 12 2007 01:12 PM

Is it really that big a deal if they cast an indian actor like Sendhil Ramamurthy instead of someone who's actually persian?

People play different nationalities all the time, and as long as the performance is good the audience is fine with it.

Look at Naveen Andrews on Lost. Does anyone care that an actor of Indian descent is playing an Iraqi? Nope, they just love the character and the performance.

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ManofStee1 writes:
on Nov 12 2007 01:27 PM

Uh... what?

Prince of Persia deserves to have a good story, but am I the only one hoping that this will be much more of an action movie than a romance? I want to see the Prince from The Two Thrones, the one that could take Neo in a fight.

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stg writes:
on Nov 12 2007 02:20 PM

I am just pointing out the absurdity of an indian actor portraying a persian prince invading india. its not the matter of portraying different nationalities, ofcourse people do it all time. But when you have an indian princess already in there why not cast somebody who can come-off as a believable prince of arab decent. having both the prince and princess of indian decent will make it difficult for an indian actor to portray that the prince is from persia. It will come-off as both of them looking like brother and sister in the end. Otherwise i have no prejudice against an actor of any decent portraying different nationalities.

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hewpot writes:
on Nov 12 2007 03:22 PM

hopefully with the success of this halo will be made, but as fer mike newell, his harry potter movie was terrible

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rgallitan writes:
on Nov 12 2007 05:12 PM

"but am I the only one hoping that this will be much more of an action movie than a romance?"

With all due respect, I certainly hope so. If you're a big fan of Warrior Within and Two Thrones, you'd better get used to the idea that this movie is going to be something else entirely. Jordan Mechner was not involved in those games. Of the new series, he only designed Sands of Time, and that's what you're going to get - straight-up romantic High Adventure. The Arabian Nights meets Indiana Jones. And that doesn't mean it won't have some amazing stunt-work... but this is NOT The Matrix.

But if you like grim, brutal anti-heroes in a period setting, I'm sure somebody is seriously thinking about adapting God of War.

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rgallitan writes:
on Nov 12 2007 05:23 PM

As for casting, I'm not going to pick anybody, but don't be surprised if the Prince's original voice-actor, Yuri Lowenthal, show up among the hopefuls. Turns out he looks almost as much like the Prince as he sounds like him.

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