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After more than two decades of stops and starts, it looked like The Alchemist – a feature film adaptation of Paulo Coelho’s beloved blockbuster novel – would finally be done.
Earlier this month, it was announced at the Cannes Film Festival that Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook Studios are joining Netter Films to produce The alchemist with a cast led by Sebastian de Souza, Tom Hollander and Shohreh Aghdashloo. PalmStar Media, which acquired the screen rights to the book about five years ago, would finance, with company founder Kevin Frakes, who would direct. A shooting in September in Morocco was imminent and a release in 2022 was planned.
Now, with the project in pre-production and the team and some actors already in the field, Alchemists’s journey to the screen turned to lead. Sources tell Hollywood journalist that funding encountered undisclosed hurdles. The project was halted and the crew sent home, sources said.
However, a production spokesperson said the film remained fully funded and had run into a rights transfer issue instead. The issue should be resolved in the next few days and the project should be back on track in a few weeks, potentially.
“It’s not a funding issue, it’s just a rights transfer issue,” the spokesperson said via email. “There was a gap in the normal execution of the transfer of production rights and, as a result, production went into a temporary halt. We expect to be back with our amazing cast and crew as soon as the rights transfer is over, and we can get everyone back on set. “
Westbrook made no comment and PalmStar and Netter Films did not respond to a request for comment.
Coelho’s novel – which has sold over 100 million copies since its publication in 1988 and holds the Guinness World Record for the most translated work by a living author – centers on a young Spanish shepherd who has a dream and embarks on a quest to find a hidden treasure in the great pyramids of Egypt.
Warner Bros. acquired the film rights from the Brazilian author in the early 1990s. Fan of the novel Laurence Fishburne acquired the rights to the film from the studio, intending to adapt and direct the film itself. It was in 2008 that The Weinstein Co. would become attached as producers, partnering with Fishburne and purchasing the rights to the film.
In 2015, it was reported that Idris Elba was committed to staring in the adaptation of Weinstein, with Fishburne close to directing, but the project was thwarted a few months later and in 2016 PalmStar acquired the film rights and screenplays developed for $ 5 million. At this time, Fishburne was still committed to directing. “He just came back,” said Fishburne THR in 2018, the addition of the functionality will meet “as soon as possible”.
At the time of the July 2021 announcement, Fishburne was no longer directing, with PalmStar principal Frakes rather set to make his directorial debut on the project after co-writing the screenplay.
In a statement earlier in July, Netter mentioned the themes of the story of never giving up. “Hundreds of millions of people over the past three decades have found inspiration in The alchemist pursue their dreams, listen to their hearts and never give up hope in the face of adversity, ”he said.
With this latest development and an uncertain future, it now looks like the sentiment may be truer than ever for producers.
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