An old unrealized Steve McQueen project is under new development. There have been several biopics and pictures in the works about the famous actor who passed away in 1980 of cancer, but this is something entirely different.
Anthony Peckham, known for writing “Sherlock Holmes,” has been hired by Warner Bros. to write, “Yucatan,” which will be the next project shepherded by Team Downey, the production shingle of Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan. Dan Lin of ‘Holmes’ and “The Box” will also co-produce with the married duo.
The picture will star Downey as a “renegade deep sea salvage expert hired to steal a mysterious hidden treasure hidden deep underwater in the Mayans ruins of Yucutan,” according to Deadline. Quickly being known as an in-house WB writer (he also penned”Invictus,” and “Book of Eli”), Peckham has been paid a sweet seven figure deal to write this heist project that’s been in development over at the studio since 2005.
Never actually written by McQueen, the actor did develop it for years, filling up 15 notebooks with 1500 pages of notes and storyboards that were later discovered by the star’s son and godson. It sounds very much in the milieu of ’70s heist picture and we’d love to see slow, quiet, hypnotic scenes underwater as you might have seen back then, but that doesn’t really seem to be Hollywood’s thing anymore.
Peckham is on a major roll of late. He was also recently hired to rewrite the “Moscow” Jack Ryan franchise reboot starring Chris Pine and has several script projects in the works including, “The Limit” which will star Tobey Maguire. We’ll be honest, we’ve read a few of his scripts in the past and they’re rather dull and rote, but ‘Sherlock’ turned out great, so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his rewrites are what led Guy Ritchie to roll snake eyes on that one.