The one-two punch of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors and The Blob (remake, of course) made me think that Chuck Russell was the real deal, a guy who was going to warm the hearts of geeks for years to come. Then he made The Mask, which was alright but really for babies and retarded people, and then came Eraser. And Bless the Child. And The Scorpion King.
I don’t know what Russell has been doing since The Scorpion King (his exec producer credit on Collateral reads to me like he was involved in the project once but had little to do with the finished film) but if he’s been in director jail, he’s been let out. Russell is working on a 3D version of The Arabian Nights. But this won’t be your caliphate’s Arabian Nights! This is a totally extreme, ready for Saturday morning cartoons Arabian Nights:
In a new spin on the classic, the story follows a young commander who, after his king is killed in a palace coup, joins forces with Sinbad, Aladdin and his genie to rescue Scheherazade and her kingdom from dark powers.
I bet this gets called The Arabian Knights.
The best part of this is that the movie is budgeted at 70 million, so I hope that Russell kept some of those Scorpion King props.