Richard Branson is never one to sit still, and now the serial entrepreneur wants to be a movie mogul, setting up Virgin Produced, which has a deal with Relativity Media to help Brnason get films off the ground. While the Virgin venture is already involved in putting together a couple of small flicks, it now appears they’ve got grander plans, with Deadline reporting that Branson is in the process of buying T.S. Nowlin’s script Columbus, which has McG attached to direct.
As you might suspect, the film is an historical epic about Christopher Columbus. The story of Columbus’ voyages has been a bit of a Hollywood no-no ever since, in 1992, the 500th Anniversary of Columbus most famous trip produced two films about him, both of which bombed horrifically. However Branson seems to think Nowlin’s script is worth a punt, despite the fact another reason people steer clear of Columbus is because he didn’t really do half the things he’s famed for, was a bit of a prig and an idiot, and managed to piss off just about everyone who knew him.
Indeed, he probably wouldn’t be famed as the discoverer of America if the Yanks hadn’t been casting around for heroes with no links to Britain following the War Of Independence. After all, Columbus never set foot in North America (he spent most of the time conviced the West Indies, which he did travel to, were part of Asia) with the British sponsored John Cabot normally getting the credit for being the first Eupropean to step onto what would become the US, although both were beaten by the Vikings and, of course, Native Americans.
The only way to make a decent Columbus pic is to lie through your teeth, because he really wasn’t much of a hero, but perhaps Nowlin’s script does just that! Either way, its got Branson interested.