A movie based on the Prince of Persia videogame has been bouncing around for awhile now, and though there’ve been plenty of rumors nothing seems to have come of any of them. Today we may have something real. Variety reports that producer Jerry Bruckheimer has offered the film to Mike Newell to direct.

Newell’s last gig was directing the indie flick Love in the Time of Cholera, but before that he was responsible for directing one of the more boring Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. That’s fitting really, since Prince of Persia has always seemed like a pretty boring game. Sure it has swords and magic, but really it’s just puzzles. Sorry, I prefer my puzzles in 1000 piece form and poured out of my box. If I’m playing a videogame I want to be shooting something… constantly. I have problems.

So maybe the movie will also be boring and full of puzzles, but from what my puzzle-gamer friends tell me it’s actually got a pretty rich backstory. That’d be a first for the videogame to movie industry, since the closest we’ve come to a videogame movie with a history is Super Mario Brothers, and that’s really all about plumbing. Not exactly cinematic.

In Prince of Persia you run around in ancient deserts unlocking magical mysteries and helping to defeat some ancient evil. Like I said, I haven’t played the game, but I’m imagining something like Aladdin, only without the fun of Genie. Aladdin for the Sega Genesis. Now that was an awesome platform game.