Ridley Scott won Hugh Jackman over on Treasure Island — here’s how
Hugh Jackman explains how Ridley Scott won him over to Treasure Island — with both men floored by a new script’s take.
The world has no shortage of pirate films, but Ridley Scott tackling Treasure Island with Hugh Jackman in tow? That’s one way to make people sit up and actually pay attention to yet another adaptation. Jackman’s gone the pirate route before (remember Pan?), but this time he’s swapping panto villainy for a story that pretty much invented the idea of buried treasure maps and talking parrots.
Jackman Didn’t Even Know The Story
Jackman sat down with Variety and admitted he came in fairly clueless: he’d never read Treasure Island, never watched any previous films, and only vaguely knew the clichés it’s responsible for. Scott sent him the script, written by Jack Thorne (yes, the bloke who wrote Adolescence and the Harry Potter play), and it apparently knocked both their socks off. Here’s Jackman in his own words from that chat:
Really, it was the script. I know Ridley and Ridley goes, 'Dude.' He sent me the script, and I just read it. I had never read the book, had never seen the movie. I knew various things about it. I actually didn’t know how foundational it was — the idea of a treasure map, the pirate and the parrot and all. I was like, 'Oh, they came from that.' And Jack Thorne, who famously wrote Adolescence and did Harry Potter for the stage show — this script was just undeniable. I was just like, 'Oh, this is amazing.' That was it.
Pressed on whether he was won over by the new spin on the old tale, Jackman admitted he didn’t know what to expect, and the feeling carried right through his first read. In his words:
All I knew was I had no idea where it was going, and I was very surprised but satisfied at the end.
The New Take: What’s Different?
This version of Treasure Island is still the classic set-up: young Jim Hawkins happens upon a dead pirate’s trove and a map to Captain Flint’s secret fortune. He gets whisked onto a voyage, mixing with an expedition crew led by the cunning, one-legged Long John Silver. Pirates do what pirates do best, mutiny ensues, and Jim finds himself up against the lot of them. The twist Scott and Thorne are bringing to it? No-one really knows yet — ‘new take’ can mean almost anything these days, sometimes for better, sometimes not — but with Thorne’s script and Scott’s direction, expectation is running high.
Scott Free is producing, with Michael Pruss on board alongside Ridley Scott, and Thorne doubling up as executive producer.
The Ridley Scott-directed Treasure Island is scripted by Jack Thorne, best known for Adolescence and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Jackman and the Marvel Rumours
As per usual with any A-lister attached to a project, talk drifted to Marvel. Is Jackman involved in Avengers: Secret Wars? He batted it away, tongue firmly in cheek, feigning total ignorance (“I don’t know what you’re talking about”) and then claiming he’s got a literal internal chip that shuts him down if he spills Marvel secrets. It was as much a non-answer as you’ll get from an actor under NDA, but at least he was game about it.