Prince of Persia: Sands of Time has been set for a June 2009 release date for some time now, so it came as a surprise to me that a director still wasn’t attached. But, indeed, Variety announced yesterday that Mike Newell will take over as director, and begin filming the desert-set drama in Morocco.

The movie is based on the successful video game series Prince of Persia, set in the ancient Middle East and bearing, at first glance, a resemblance to Aladdin. Mike Newell is best known for directing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but is resented by me for making the virtually unwatchable Love in the Time of Cholera movie that came out last fall.

Poor Newell. He seemed like a pretty competent director after Harry Potter, but now he’s off making video game adaptations. Of course, video game movies are all the rage right now, and maybe he has the kind of visual flair and directing ability to make this something worth watching. It’s a big potential franchise for Disney, so the stakes may be pretty high if this doesn’t turn out so well.

The movie doesn’t have a cast yet, but if it attracts some big names we’ll have a better idea of whether or not this is a disaster waiting to happen. Then again, Cholera had Javier Bardem, and we all saw how that turned out. Wait, no we didn’t. Because no one saw it. Just trust me on this one.