Stephen Sommers Wants Tarzan Doing Parkour

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on December 4, 2008

In this world of constant rebooting, reinvention and re-envisioning something is bound to go wrong eventually. And leave it to director extraordinaire Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, Van Helsing) to take a relatively harmless franchise such as Tarzan and do something completely ridiculous. As Entertainment Weekly’s Christine Spines is reporting, “Director Stephen Sommers and screenwriter Stuart Beattie (Australia) are ditching the boy-raised-by-apes origin story for a 1930’s-set romp with a hefty helping of romance: Think Pirates of the Caribbean with buffed-and-tanned actors flying through the jungle and sprinting up trees, parkour-style.” 

Hmm, why doesn’t he just his old pal Brendan Fraser as Tarzan. Oh right, they already made that movie. And as much as I would love to see Leslie Mann in a loincloth, I see no reason to bring back anything along the lines of George of the Jungle. And to me, that is what this sounds like — completely ridiculous.

Then again, I’ve been wrong about this before and Stuart Beattie isn’t some hack writer, he’s just one that likes to make a lot of money. Which is why he’s had his name all over the aforementioned Pirates affairs. With his help maybe Sommers can at least get through the script stage with a solid flick, leaving him to burn it back down once the cameras begin to roll. I don’t mean to take all of my fat aggression out on Stephen Sommers here, but lets let facts be facts — he’s given us all three Mummy movies (and he got a writing credit on that straight to DVD Scorpion King 2 shitfest), Deep Rising, the live-action Jungle Book movie and Van Helsing. The latter of which wasn’t actually that bad. But otherwise, this man is the plague for any sword-and-sandals, jungle fever period piece. Seriously, this is a terrible idea.

But enough about what I think. Lets put this to the masses.

What do you think about Stephen Sommers and his parkour-style Tarzan movie?


Read more articles by Neil Miller

« Previous Article | Next Article »

Related Topics:

In Development, Movie News, , , ,

Related Reading:

Your Ad Here

Comment Policy: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Film School Rejects reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. We also reserve the right to modify any curse words in your comments and make you look like an idiot. Thank You!

  • joshi38
    Did people hate the Disney Tarzan movie? From what I recall it went down pretty well and I know I liked it, but in that movie, Tarzan moved very fluidly through the jungle, swinging on vines, surfing on the trees and climbing and jumping around in a very parkour way. I say, if they can accomplish that in real life, then they should go for it.


    Not that I have a hell of a lot of faith for a Stephen Sommers movie, loved the Mummy as a fun film, but he hasn't really proven himself as a good film maker.
  • This is gonna suck really bad.
  • No one can top Greystoke, with Chritopher Lambert. Problem is hollywood doesn't want to deal with the real issues of a nude guy swinging thru trees and killing wild animals with his bare hands.

    I will agree though that Helsing would have been better if the had spent more time on the script and less on the special effects.
  • so are you talking about the fluidity of Shia swinging through Crystal Skull?
  • joshi38
    Oh God no...

    Though to be honest, (and I haven't seen the film in a while) I don't remember that looking particularly bad, it was just a huge WTF moment in a film that didn't need it. In Tarzan such things are expected (though admittedly, I should hope it's done better than Shia in Crystal Skull).
  • Christopher M
    For an Indiana Jones knock-off The Mummy was a decent movie, I can't say the other movies were good at all...Yet if you watch The Mummy versus Kingdom of The Crystal Skulls, the Mummy wins...I know this Tarzan project sounds bad in print so far..but I feel that parkour could mean that we'll finally see some decent practical stunts and effects with this movie...so we don't have watch Sommers ruin the movie with too much bizzare looking CGI...I think that's why Van Helsing wasn't as good as it could have been, it seemed more of a special effects experiment rather than entertainment
  • The Mummy was good. . .everything else he's done. . .not so much.
  • jonathan
    He does not deserve this franchise, after failing to capture what G.I. Joe is all about. His G.I. Joe interpretation was down right crappy, who can picture G.I. Joe as a futuristic James Bond Movie. it was a hack
blog comments powered by Disqus