Sam Worthington is Allen Quartermain

Sam Worthington is starring in and producing this bizarre Dreamworks project.

DreamWorks' version is set in a time in which humans have left Earth and sees Quatermain return to the planet from a sojourn in space, embarking on another "King Solomon's Mines"-style adventure but on a planetwide scale.

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This, along with "Cowboys and Aliens"....it would seem as though KOTCS may have affected the conscious or unconscious hollywood collective.

Oh, god...



WORTHINGTON SUCKS!!


There, I said it. That felt good.

I must say I'm not pleased by Hollywood attempting to remake every good historical swashbuckling-adventure IP *but IN SPACE!* First Captain Blood, now this...

Do movie producers think planet Earth isn't exotic enough anymore?

To be fair, if they were to ditch Worthington and take the Quatermain name off of it, it would have some potential: A treasure hunt on an abandoned, future-primative, alien planet that just so happens to be earth. I have no doubt, however that whatever morsel of genuine inspiration there is will be choked out of it with the Worthington brand of acting, lavish cgi environments and shoehorning elements of the now classic King Solomon's Mines tale into it. Even worse, it will probably make a mint....or at least enough to inspire more hollywood schlock. Not that I mind schlock. It's the overwrought variety that bugs me.

But at least I'm giving it a chance.

ATMachine said:

I must say I'm not pleased by Hollywood attempting to remake every good historical swashbuckling-adventure IP *but IN SPACE!* First Captain Blood, now this...

Do movie producers think planet Earth isn't exotic enough anymore?

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Other than "Treasure Planet", no movie like that has actually been made.

Indy's brother said:

To be fair, if they were to ditch Worthington and take the Quatermain name off of it, it would have some potential: A treasure hunt on an abandoned, future-primative, alien planet that just so happens to be earth. I have no doubt, however that whatever morsel of genuine inspiration there is will be choked out of it with the Worthington brand of acting, lavish cgi environments and shoehorning elements of the now classic King Solomon's Mines tale into it. Even worse, it will probably make a mint....or at least enough to inspire more hollywood schlock. Not that I mind schlock. It's the overwrought variety that bugs me.

But at least I'm giving it a chance.

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Based on the tiny synopsis, it's not the worst idea in the world.

It just makes no sense at all to call it "Allan Quatermain."

That isn't a name that means anything to the majority of the modern audience, so there's no reason to keep it if the story is such a massive departure. It adds nothing to the value of the movie in the eyes of the public.

All you will achieve is to **** of a small but vocal minority of purists who think it's ridiculous to have Allen Quatermain in outer space.

Stupid all around.

Worthington? He's... fine but he's not charismatic enough to star as someone like Quartermain: the last one on the big screen was Sean Connery- he can hardly match up!
And Quartermain in space... gah.

Lance Quazar said:

Other than "Treasure Planet", no movie like that has actually been made.

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Well, H. Rider Haggard's other famous character, Ayesha (She Who Must Be Obeyed), from the novel "She" was transported to 1968 in the film "The Vengeance of She". Ayesha and Quatermain met in a Haggard novel so they are part of the same universe.

Another one that comes to mind is "Sinbad of the Seven Seas" with Lou Ferrigno. (A film so bad it has to be seen to believed.) Sindbad GOES TO THE MOON! I think even Tarzan went to outer space...

Lance Quazar said:

All you will achieve is to **** of a small but vocal minority of purists who think it's ridiculous to have Allen Quatermain in outer space.

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This sounds like cyberpunk stuff with a classic name attached to it. Seeing Quatermain battling enemies who wield hand-held automatic machine guns in "The Extraordinary League of Gentlemen" was a real turn off. Thanks to that piece of garbage, AQ has now crossed into the realm of sci-fi which makes this latest outing not so surprising.

Having said that, I do love "From the Earth to the Moon" and "The Time Machine", etc. so this project is one I'll be looking forward to...no matter how bad it is. Being a Quatermain freak, I have to agree that they should just name the character something else. Otherwise, make the character a great-great grandson. (Quatermain's son has been used before...so why not?)

emtiem said:

the last one on the big screen was Sean Connery- he can hardly match up!

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Connery did a decent job but, damn, do I despise that movie! (Haven't read the comic.)

Lance Quazar said:

Based on the tiny synopsis, it's not the worst idea in the world.

It just makes no sense at all to call it "Allan Quatermain."

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Totally agree. If they'd done an exciting Quatermain adventure, following the story just making it more Indy-like, I would've been excited. But going full-on sci-fi? What's the point?

Stoo said:

(Haven't read the comic.)

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Then do so. Right now. It gets a bit messed up later, but the first two volumes are solid gold Alan Moore brilliance.

Stoo said:

Connery did a decent job but, damn, do I despise that movie! (Haven't read the comic.)

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Trust me, the comic is really brilliant.

Stoo said:

I think even Tarzan went to outer space...

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Not to my knowledge, Stoo. At least not in the original 24-volume cycle of novels. He, however, does journey to the earth's core in an airship. Did we mention the tribe of Teutonic Knights hidden in Africa?

Stoo said:

Connery did a decent job but, damn, do I despise that movie! (Haven't read the comic.)

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It's an awful movie that, well, would've needed to try exceptionally hard to be any worse. Though, it could've been far better if they had followed the comic and made Quatermain arthritic and an opium addict. Or, made Mina Harker the lead.

We can only hope this project dies in development. Was this one not good enough?

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Le Saboteur said:

Not to my knowledge, Stoo. At least not in the original 24-volume cycle of novels. He, however, does journey to the earth's core in an airship. Did we mention the tribe of Teutonic Knights hidden in Africa?

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I was thinking of a Tarzan film but might be confusing it with a movie incarnation of some other character. There were a couple of episodes of the '70s cartoon Tarzan where he dealt with spaceships & aliens. (One of them is shockingly similar to the finale of "Crystal Skull"!)

Le Saboteur said:

We can only hope this project dies in development. Was this one not good enough?

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Still need to get that "Temple of the Skulls" flick! I hope this new project doesn't die because, Quatermain or not, I wanna see it.

@The Tingler and kongisking: If I get the chance, I'll check out the comic but if I don't like it, you both get 10 lashes!Speaking of whip lashes, Indy's brother gets a big one for mispelling "Allan Quatermain" in the thread title.

While I'm at it, allow me to shoot down the article he linked to. What a shoddy piece of internet journalism, complete with spelling errors and erroneous information. The 2nd Richard Chamberlain film was NOT a direct-to-video release! After checking out some other reports, many of them spell the name correctly but not IMDB.

I'm curious to know what the actual title of the film is going to be: "Quatermain" or "Quartermain"?