Universal has set
Peter Berg (Hancock) to direct “
Battleship,” a live-action adaptation of
Hasbro‘s board game.
According to
Variety, Berg joins “Battleship” as part of his two-picture deal he made with Universal Pictures; the other film is the Afghan war drama “
Lone Survivor.”
For Berg, the picture realizes a passion for ship-bound war stories that he picked up from his naval historian father.
“I've been consumed with doing one of these since I tried to convince Tom Rothman at Fox to make a film about John Paul Jones, the founder of the American Navy,” Berg said. “As a kid, I was dragged from Navy museum to museum, and spent so much time on ships, listening to my father talk about the great battles of WWII, I did my high school thesis on the Battle of Midway. When this came up, it didn't take me long to find a take for a film that is filled with raucous action-packed naval battles.”
Jon Hoeber and
Erich Hoeber (Whiteout) penned the script and Universal has set a July 1st 2011 release date. The trade then says that “
Hancock 2” and “
Dune” will come later, indicating those projects are still years away.
Besides Berg, Universal Pictures also continues to take advantage of their multi-year deal with Hasbro, which they continue to hope will provide endless branded entertainment films. Universal has quite a few Hasbro properties in the works already including
Stretch Armstrong,
Clue,
Monopoly,
Candyland and
Ouija, and they remain excited about adding Battleship to that list.
