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Stuart Beattie, best known for having his name on the Pirates of the Caribbean posters and soon to be known as the guy who wrote that awful G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra script has set his sights on the popular Australian youth-novel series that begins with Tomorrow, When the War Began. The series, referred to as “The Tomorrow Series” by fans, apparently doesn’t care about proper grammatical tenses and takes place in an Australia that has been besieged by foreign invaders.  A young group of teens, lead by the female lead Ellie Linton, become guerrilla fighters and begin an insurgency.  Sounds like an Australian Red Dawn! How awesome is that!  I am really excited for this property to hit the big screen it will be awesome unless Beattie is an idiot!  Oh… Wait.  Check this.

“I don’t want to make ‘Red Dawn,’ ” said Beattie, though he admits to liking the movie that MGM is in the process of remaking. “Do you remember when ‘The Full Monty’ and ‘Striptease’ were coming out together? They came out within months as the exact same premise — the parent strips for money so they can see their kid. But completely different. One was all flash and rockin’ body, and the other was completely the opposite, of total insecurity about getting up onstage. We’re more like the ‘Full Monty’ version.”

Damn it, Stuart Beattie!  Damn it!  Instead of an awesome epic Australian war film we get the tame, character coming of age story of a war film.  Well that could be premature.  Maybe this will be awesome.  The premise is awesome, that’s for sure.  Anywho, the series spans seven novels and the plan right now is to make three of them into movies and then finish the story with a TV series.  The books, currently unavailable in the US, will see a Scholastic printing closer to the release date of the film.  Beattie adapted the screenplay and will make his directorial debut.

What do you want – explosions or character studies?