Jack Black Will Be Tall for Once in ‘Gulliver’s Travels’

Posted by Josh Radde (josh@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 6, 2008

Doing a made-for-TV mini-series starring Ted Danson just simply isn’t enough for some people. It was announced this morning that Jack Black will co-produce and star in an adaptation of the classic story Gulliver’s Travels. The tale, about a man who gets washed ashore a country full of people six inches tall, was originally written by Jonathan Swift in the 1700’s.

There have already been several attempts to translate Gulliver’s Travels to a different medium. In 1939, a rotoscoped version of the story was nominated for an Academy Award. The late Richard Harris (Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter movies) played Gulliver in a live action/animated musical which only told the story of the first voyage. The afore-mentioned Ted Danson mini-series came out in 1996, produced by Hallmark Entertainment, and is one of the only adaptations to tackle the entire story. It also won five Emmys.

Shark Tale director Rob Letterman has signed on to direct and Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller is credited (along with Shrek’s Joe Stillman) as the writers. Black will be co-producing as a part of his Electric Dynamite production company.

Details of the project have not been released so far, but the story is far too large to fit into one film. So unless they plan to modernize it or tell only bits of the larger story, we could be looking at a potential four film franchise for Fox.

Shooting is set to begin in March, 2009.

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