Today is one of those days where I get to feel like a soothsayer. On September 16th, 2010, I opened an article about Alex Proyas directing an adaptation of John Milton's Paradise Lost by saying, "There are some books out there that simply can't be adapted for a feature film. Some stories are simply too graphic or set on too large a scale to be made for the big screen. One of these books is John Milton's Paradise Lost. Though often rumored, nobody will ever successfully produce the film." Turns out that I was right.
Legendary Pictures has officially scrapped plans to turn Paradise Lost into a movie, according to Deadline. The news comes almost exactly two months after Warner Bros. put the project on hold due to budget concerns. Last month, Bradley Cooper, who was going to play Lucifer in the movie, said that things were going well and that they would likely start production in June - now it looks like that isn't going to happen. The problem for Legendary, of course, was budgetary, as they were hoping to only spend $120 million on the project at most. T
he dream isn't totally dead, and the project could be picked up again in the future, but it will require advancements in technology that will limit the cost of such a large endeavor. The film had assembled a great cast outside of Cooper as well, with Benjamin Walker, Diego Boneta, Camilla Belle,Casey Affleck, Callan McAuliffe, Dominic Purcell, Rufus Sewell, and Djimon Hounsou all attached.
Anyone who has read Milton's epic poem knows that this was always going to be a long shot, and it's really for the best that the movie is dead. You can't film a story like Paradise Lost with only $120 million and it appears that Legendary and the filmmakers finally figured that out.
