Berg Plays 'Battleship,' Preps for 'Dune' and has Two More in the Oven

'Lone Survivor' and 'Hancock 2' round out Berg's quartet

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Wednesday, September 16th 2009 at 12:14 PM

Peter Berg's name has been everywhere lately with a slew of films on his upcoming slate and as it turns out Variety confirms two more.

First off is Battleship for Universal based on the Hasbro board game. This isn't a huge surprise since Berg's name was knocked around when back in May, but considering all the talk of Hancock 2 and Dune it is a bit of a surprise it's been confirmed to be his next film.

The pic is set for a July 1, 2011 release and is described as a contemporary story of an international five-ship fleet engaged in a very dynamic, violent and intense battle.

Battleship was actually part of a two-pic deal in which the studio will have the director follow-up with Lone Survivor, a fact-based story he scripted about a Navy SEAL team that is sent to Afghanistan and is ambushed. Berg told Variety, "It was pretty obvious to me they weren't jumping head over heels to make a war film in the Middle East right now," Berg said. "So they said, 'what if you give us Battleship for July 2011, and we guarantee you'll follow with Lone Survivor?' I already loved the take we had on Battleship, so that wasn't a hard deal to make."

That isn't all for Berg, however, as he hasn't forgotten about his remake of Dune talking up the project to MTV and bringing up franchise potential and describing the film as "a massive epic." The project is still in the script stage and Berg says they are trying to "figure out how we can beat [the script] into something manageable without offending the purists," he explained, as "filmmakers have struggled [in the past] because it's a very complicated book to crack."

Berg continued by saying, "My experience with the book was different than David Lynch's experience or the people behind the Sci Fi Channel's experience. I found it to be more of an adventure tale, more of a muscular action/adventure story. I think that's my approach, not as an R-rated film, but as a pretty hard PG-13 film about a young man dealing with issues of vengeance over the death of his father and wanting some payback and having to come to terms with his destiny along the way."

So for now it looks like we will get Battleship, Lone Survivor and I am assuming Hancock 2 in that order, with Dune most likely being the helmer's capstone after four-plus years of non-stop filmmaking.

Links from Other Sites You May Like