With his Martin Luther King Jr. biopic currently in limbo over rights issues, director Paul Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Ultimatum) is looking for other projects to helm and he may have found his next subject – pirates. But before you start making comparisons to Johnny Depp's mega-lucrative Disney franchise, this will be a different kind of pirate story.
Sony Pictures is currently looking to hook Greengrass into directing the story of Captain Richard Phillips who was taken hostage by Somali pirates in 2009 only to be rescued by US Naval forces. Phillips went on to co-write a book, A Captain's Duty, detailing his experiences. Tom Hanks is attached to the adaptation, titled after the name of Phillips' ship – Maersk Alabama.
If Greengrass decides to pass on the pirates project there's another movie he is currently intrigued by - Rush. Not the classic rock band, but instead a movie about Formula One champion Niki Lauda's near-fatal season in 1976. During the second lap of the German Grand Prix, Lauda's car crashed off the track, his car bursting into flames around him. He escaped but not before lapsing into a coma and losing his right ear.
Greengrass' frenetic directorial pacing is at its best in films like Bourne Ultimatum and United 93. Green Zone also had similar elements but ultimately fell flat. Both of these proposed projects seem right up his alley, so which would you most like to see? Personally, the pirates movie seems to have more meat to it, though if Greengrass is going for a more dramatic project (as the MLK Jr. movie suggests), he'd be better suited with the Lauda movie.
