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Paramount is giving Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer a 21st century makeover.
The studio has picked up a spec by Andy Burg titled Huck, with Peter Chernin and Dylan Clark producing along with Matt Lopez.
The title characters, of course, are 19th century creations of author Mark Twain and are known for their mischievous teenage adventures – Sawyer, presented as a small-town, all-American boy, is something of a schemer, while Finn, who is more of an outcast, is faced with tougher moral choices. The duo first appeared in Twain’s 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Twain continued their tales in three additional books. There have been several film and TV adaptations of the material, from 1918’s Huck and Tom, starring Jack Pickford and Robert Gordon, to Disney’s 1995 version Tom and Huck, starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Brad Renfro.
The storyline is being kept under wraps, but the project is described as a re-imagining in the vein of Snow White and the Huntsman, focusing on Sawyer and Finn as adults. There also are supernatural elements to the script.
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Chernin and Clark are the producers behind Rise of the Planet of the Apes and are in production on Oblivion, Universal’s sci-fi project starring Tom Cruise.
Lopez is a screenwriter whose credits include Bedtime Stories and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
Huck is the latest project Burg has set up at Paramount; Hellified, a supernatural actioner with Lorenzo di Bonaventura producing, also calls the studio home. He is repped by Brucks Entertainment and Sloane Offer. ICM repped the scribe in the deal.
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