Peter Berg Makes Hercules

I felt a lot better about Peter Berg taking on projects I was excited about before I saw Hancock. What a mess that movie was. Hopefully he won’t have the same wrecking ball effect on his next couple of movies, because in addition to being the guy to tackle Dune Variety now reports that he’ll be in charge of a new Hercules movie too.

Stop right there. I know what you’re thinking. No it will not involve Kevin Sorbo. Sorry ladies, you’ll have to find someone else to throw your panties at. Though I’m sure Kevin would still be more than happy to have some of the big ones. We don’t know who will star in this new Hercules take yet, but we do know it won’t have anything to do with the old TV series which spawned the warrior princess Xena, fueling the nasty, sweating fantasies of overweight, dateless, lifeless, live-at-home nerds for decades to come and creating a wash day nightmare for their poor mothers who would eventually be forced to change their 40-year-old sons’ heavily stained sheets. On the bright side, there was that one really funny Simpsons episode with Lucy Lawless.

It’s not entirely clear yet whether or not Berg will actually direct the movie, to be titled Hercules: The Thracian Wars (does every movie have to have a bad subtitle?). For now, he’s only in line to produce and develop the concept from a script by some guy named Ryan Condal and, of course, based on a comic book by someone else. Because it would be impossible to write a good Hercules script without first reading a comic book about it. Comics… that’s where Hercules came from isn’t it? What? Historical myths? Fuck that noise, the people want comic books. Well... they don't actually want to read them. But turning them into movies, now that's where it's at.