Jon Turteltaub has signed on to develop the languishing Fox 2000 project Beached as a directing vehicle, which will capitalise on the popularity of Olympic swimming, and add in a few whales for good measure.
The plot centres on a four-year-old boy who falls overboard during a family trip. The overweight lad is then raised by whales before going on to become an Olympic swimmer (realism is not going to be one of this movie’s strong points, I feel).
This project has been kicking around since 1997, with an original screenplay by Ted Griffin (Ocean’s Eleven). Jordan Roberts (Around the Bend) wrote the most recent draft of the screenplay. Jon Turteltaub will supervise a new rewrite, although it isn’t known if another writer has signed on yet.
The director won’t get around to Beached for a while yet, as he’s currently in pre-production on the comedy Last Vegas, starring Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Kline, which is due to start shooting soon. (Source: THR)