Steven Spielberg will produce and may direct the late Michael Crichton’s unpublished novel Pirate Latitudes after DreamWorks Studios acquired film rights.
Spielberg is reuniting with his Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, War Of The Worlds and Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp on the high profile project, a major acquisition since DreamWorks Studios and Reliance Big Entertainment announced last week that they had closed the first phase of funding for the restructured studio.
Crichton was writing Pirate Latitudes before his death last November. His assistant found the manuscript and HarperCollins will publish the novel on November 24, 2009.
The story takes place 1665 as pirates plan to infiltrate Port Royal, one of the world’s richest and most notorious cities, and raid a Spanish galleon filled with treasure.
Spielberg and Koepp turned Crichton’s Jurassic Park and The Lost World into hit films and Spielberg also worked with the late author on the TV series E.R.
Spielberg called Crichton “one of our greatest storytellers who expanded all of our imaginations with his books, films, and television”, which Koepp said the chance to work on a third Crichton adaptation “seems like a dream.”
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