After three incredibly solid animated features in the ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ franchise, writer-director Dean DeBlois is finding himself with a ton of feature film offers. We already know that his next film will be “Micronauts,” marking his live-action feature debut. However, according to a new report from Deadline, he’s already lining up the gig he’ll take after that feature, an adaptation of the 1883 Robert Louis Stevenson novel, “Treasure Island.”
The story of Jim Hawkins and pirate Captain Long John Silver is coming to the big screen once again via Universal and Mandeville Films. If you’re a fan of the various films or TV projects based on the novel, or just a fan of the classic novel itself, you likely know that “Treasure Island” tells the story of the young Hawkins who finds himself on the hunt for buried treasure alongside the aforementioned Captain Long John Silver.
The novel is regarded as one of the most iconic ever written, inspiring countless imitations and changing pop culture perceptions about pirates and swashbuckling adventures. Ever wonder where the idea of treasure maps with ‘X’ marking the spot came from? Or why pirates are always depicted as peg-legged with parrots on their shoulders? You can thank “Treasure Island.”
“Beauty and the Beast” writer Evan Spiliotopoulos is on board to help co-write the script alongside DeBlois. As mentioned, this film isn’t going to be the first post-‘Dragon’ film from the writer-director. Before he travels on a pirate ship, he has to bring the long-awaited Paramount/Hasbro film “Micronauts” to the big screen, and hopefully, kickstart a new franchise.
“Micronauts” isn’t expected to be released until June 2021, which means that DeBlois will be pretty busy over the next two years before he can start work on “Treasure Island.”