Jake Gyllenhaal to play Prince of Persia News
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by
Ellie Gibson
Jake Gyllenhaal, him out of Donnie Darko and Brokeback Mountain, has signed up to don the big trousers for the Prince of Persia film.
According to the Hollywood Reporter the film is set in 6th century Persia. Gyllenhaal will play the prince, Dastan, while the role of "feisty and exotic" princess Tamina will be played by Gemma Arterton. No, not Gemma Atkinson, unfortunately; Arterton is the one appearing in the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. Together, Dastan and Tamina must take on an evil nobleman who is determined to possess the Sands of Time.
Mike Newell (who made Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Four Weddings and a Funeral, amongst other things) will direct the film. The script has been written by Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard and Boaz Yakin (no idea but IMDB reveals Yoakin wrote Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, worryingly) together with POP creator Jordan Mechner.
Jerry Bruckheimer is producing and reckons Gyllenhaal is "charismatic", while Arterton is also a good choice despite not having been in Hollyoaks.
"We've been fairly fortunate with some of our leading ladies," he said. "Some of them have gone on to become major movie stars, going back to Nicole Kidman in a movie I did a long time ago called Days of Thunder to Keira Knightley out of Pirates of the Caribbean."
Bruckheimer would not reveal the budget for the film but did say, "It's not one of our smaller productions."
Filming will begin in Morocco and England this June, and the movie is pencilled in for a 2009 release.
Are you excited about Prince of Persia on PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/PC?
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Comments: 1-37 of 37 in total
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PearOfAnguish
21/05/08 @ 08:15
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Yay someone else has heard of Bubble Boy.
500 dollar! 500 DOLLAR!! Erm, anyway, yeah, not convinced about this casting, Ghyllenhaall is a fine actor but I have trouble picturing him as Persian royalty. |
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muscleblade
21/05/08 @ 08:27
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Why is the movie based on Prince of Persia Sands of time. That was a very good game indeed but its not like anyone play it now is it? I guess they release it on XBLA/PSN when the movie premieres.
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acehotshot
21/05/08 @ 08:32
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So that's where Mike Newell went after leaving Luton Town.....landed on his feet to be fair! ;)
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asphaltcowboy
21/05/08 @ 09:18
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@JSPOOLE: Are you f*cking kidding? (wrt your post about Gyllenhaal being no better than Bloom)
Anyway, back to the story, wouldn't have been my obvious choice, but he's a good actor, so let's hope the script and budget it do it justice.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 21/05/08 @ 10:19
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Nooooo. This is bad news IMO. Jake can act, but I don't think this role is suited for him. Firstly, I don't think he's athletic enough for parkour. Stunt Double ftw. Secondly, he doesn't look as good as Oded or David Zandi, who would have been better. However, the Prince is not completely semetic-looking so they could pull of an "aryan" style character I guess.
Also, a lot of you seem to like the idea of Oded as Prince. He's way too old now and a lot of fans would be upset if he was chosen. I won't go into details but maybe one or two of you will get me. David Zandi would have been better. He looks a bit like the Prince, and plus he's actually descended from Persian royalty. And finally....Gemma Aterton for Princess? Worst decision ever? She doesn't look nearly exotic enough and is not hot IMO. They would have been better off using Aishwarya Rai, like the rumours suggested. Overall, I'm very disappointed by this news.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 21/05/08 @ 10:29
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asphaltcowboy
21/05/08 @ 09:32
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David Zandi would have been better
How exactly, apart from 'looks', would this guy have been better? He's only had TWO (uncredited) roles on his CV! I'm sure he's a brilliant actor! :/ |
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http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z270/...
http://uk.imdb.com/media/rm2920191488/nm... Now, tell me who should be FTW. |
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"Mr Gyllenhall has the athletic quality to pull this off (oo-er); he's QUITE buffed, if you actually take notice of such things."
I can vouch for this having spent many long hours studying our Jakey. I hope he gets to wear a shirt ripped to the waist!
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 21/05/08 @ 10:54
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I'm going to have to disagree with y'all about Jake's athletiscm. He's not lean enough, he's too buff (in the sense that he is too large muscularly, not attractive, which I'm sure he is but I don't swing that way). Parkour is usually performed by smaller, less built and leaner individuals.
And I still don't like Gemma Arterton. |
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Ignoring the casting for a minute... POP:SOT is one of the few games that could actually make a great movie if done right.
The characters have some kind of a story arc, the setting is good, the bad-guy is the right kind of melodramatic. If they can find a way to make the time-reversal action sequences cool then I'm all for this. *Preys for a very long single-take shot in a fight sequence with multiple painful looking hits and rewinds in it. No cuts* Of course it could all go wrong, but it's easier to be optomistic about this than most crossovers. |
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seamonsterneil
21/05/08 @ 11:27
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i want it to be based on the old games and its just 90 minutes of someone jumping offa ledge, hitting spikes or being crushed by things
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Chaote-Imagicka
21/05/08 @ 11:36
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"It would have been nice if they actually went for a Prince who actually looked somewhat Persian."
Also an Indian Princess who looked vaguely Indian would be nice. Bet the Vizier is brown though. |
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Just a note to anybody who's interested. The Prince and Princess and even much of the story is actually not meant to be a precise adaptation of the game. The creator himself wrote the script for the film and said that he wanted it to be a sort of alternate version, hence no Indian-looking Princess and a named Prince.
Also note that the Prince does not therefore have to look like one from the game, and as long as Jake gets a slight tan, he could actually look like an Iranian guy (like the Aryan ones). I still don't like the choice of casting though. And I still don't like Gemma Arteton. |
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monkie_king
21/05/08 @ 12:12
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I may be misremembering, but the SoT prince was from the matinee idol template, wasn't he? More Errol Flynn than Saladin? I always thought that Sands was in the Indiana Jones Saturday-matinee-serial swashbuckling tradition, and was deliberately inauthentic in terms of voice acting and ethnicity.
Anyway, I just hope they find a way to keep the circular arc of the narrative intact, and maybe even re-use the voice-over mechanic to do it. |
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DarthInsinuate
21/05/08 @ 14:32
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I'm going to predict Omid Djalili appears in the film as a token Iranian.
I'm also going to predict there'll be a scene where Jake Gyllenhaal tries to wall run past a trap, but keeps getting it wrong, so he keeps reversing time and trying again, back and forth. That'll be about half the film. |
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Triggerhappytel
21/05/08 @ 16:48
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JSPOOLE - "It would have been nice if they actually went for a Prince who actually looked somewhat Persian."
My thoughts exactly. But then it probably wouldn't fare too well in the US if Sendhil Ramamurthy or someone who looks vaguely darker-skinned was to star in a Hollywood movie, huh? I wouldn't mind; it would have a much more genuine air of authenticity. |
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leilamaria
25/05/08 @ 02:28
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Jake Gyllenhaal has been cast as the Prince of Persia. And Gemma Arteton is playing the Indian princess. WTF?
This guy is NOT the prince of persia Go here to see the one who SHOULD be...his name is Hrithik Roshan and looks more like the true prince... http://www.housefull.in/wallpapers/hrith... OR JOHN ABRAHAM who has strong Persian roots and looks like the perfect prince! almost a duplicate of him. http://www.gpsinfoway.com/blog/wp-conten... And this should have been Tahmina...she looks way more like Farah: http://www.parinda.com/files/storyimages... Why is Hollywood so stupid and racist? They always have actual Persians or Arabs play terrorists, but when it comes to the hero or good guy, they only let famous brand namers play it. Look at how they portrayed Persians in 300. I just threw up a little in my mouth at the thought of Jake Gyllenhall playing a Persian Prince and Averton play a wannabe exotic princess....she doesn't look exotic at ALL. And hey if you don't agree with this choice go to this website and sign this petition : http://www.petitiononline.com/popfilm/pe... Please sign before July! |
Comments: 1-37 of 37 in total
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