Stuart Beattie Will Try to Save the World

The writers strike may be keeping the pens from flying across the page, but some deals are still getting made. Variety has reported that Stuart Beattie has signed on to write a new film called The Man Who Tried to Save the World -- once the strike is over, of course. The writer got his big break helping to suss out the story for the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, but that's not all he's been involved in. He penned Collateral, and then followed it up with the beyond-stinkariffic Derailed, he worked on 30 Days of Night, and now has got a bunch of original and adapted features on the way -- Australia, Man Without a Gun, Spy Hunter, G.I. Joe, and Without Remorse.

The Man Who Tried to Save the World is based on the life and death of U.S. aid worker Fred Cuny, and will be based on Scott Anderson's book of the same title, along with a '97 Frontline documentary called The Lost American. "The film will focus on the death-defying disaster-relief exploits of Cuny, a Texan who became known as the Master of Disaster for his accomplishments in unstable places like Iraq, Ethiopia, Somalia, Bosnia, and Chechnya." However, he could only avoid death for so long, and when he went missing in Chechnya, it is believed he was murdered there. While we have been over-saturated lately with heavy political and war dramas, this could be a bit of a different spin, if done right. At the very least, it's a sort of a real-life action hero story.

Topping that off, Beattie is also penning planning to pen a feature based on his recent documentary, Bra Boys. The film focused on the evolution of a Sydney beach surf gang of the same name, and was narrated by Russell Crowe, who Variety says will direct the feature. While I wish this is about a gang who is wild for the soft-touch of bras, I imagine it's just the typical surfer slang.