Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an update on the movements of Mr. Rupert Wyatt, who came out of left field with a spectacular surprise in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, shoots this year, but Wyatt walked away (I heard he had a miserable time on the first film and had to fight for every inch of goodness in that film). The Apes sequel has Matt Reeves at the helm, which is good news, especially since Fox has been de-Rothman'd, so maybe the micromanagement will ease up a bit.

Mr. Wyatt will be writing and directing an adaptation of the highly acclaimed WW1 romance novel BIRDSONG by Sebastian Faulks, per Screen Daily.

The story follows a young Englishman who falls in love with a French lady in the nineteen-teens, knocks her up, goes back home and then finds himself back in France 6 years later as a soldier, fighting in the trenches while all the emotions of his romantic entanglement mix with the horrors of war around him.

To be honest, it sounds a bit like every other WW1-centered romance tale, but from what I understand Faulks does a great job at describing the horrors of WW1 trench warfare and if Wyatt can make this movie thrilling as well heart-string tugging I could see this working out quite well.

Stuffy shirt British TV watcher people might be scratching their heads a bit, thinking they've already seen this... and they have. Eddie Redmayne, Matthew Goode and Clemence Poesy adapted this for the BBC last year.

So, there you go.

-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter