A New Film of The Saint Resurrected By Paramount  

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Du-dudu-da-dudu…Paramount are hoping that The Saint will bless them with a whole new blockbuster franchise after the company brought up the rights to Leslie Charteris for a new film. 

Charteris’ novels, which were published between 1928 and 1963 (others both with and without the author's input arrived in the 1980's and 90's), focused on the antics of the charming debonair Simon Templar, an off-beat hero who, using his quick wits and ingenuity, took on corrupt politicians, drug runners and the like, using a plethora of cunning disguises. 

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The concept went on to spawn a radio adaptation, comic strip and, most famously, a TV series in the 60’s staring a pre-Bond Roger Moore. Its sole outing on the big screen in 1997 stared Val Kilmer in the Templar role and despite receiving a decent return on its investment, was panned by the critics for largely missing the point of The Saint – it’s not supposed to be real, it’s a escapist fantasy very much in the same mould as James Bond (the books predate Ian Fleming’s literary adventures and there’s a lot of Bond in Simon Templar, while in a pleasingly circular irony, The Saint movie owes a great debt to the Bond films…and then misses the point of which it originated. Oh the complicated world of suave superspy movies). 

Paramount is looking to gather the likes of producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who helped launch the Transformers movies; Robert Evans, who was the studio executive on The Godfather; and more as producers to shepherd this one, but it's still early days.

The Saint
Simon Templar creates false identities named after saints in order to steal money from various criminal organizations...
Release Dates
TBA-DVD
TBA-4K Blu-ray
TBA-VOD
9
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