The news that Hugh Jackman is set to star in Ridley Scott’s adaptation of an iconic adventure novel is exciting, but the movie will have a hard time outdoing its cinematic predecessors. Since Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise went dormant in 2017 after its fifth outing, the swashbuckler genre hasn’t been busy at the multiplex. Like any genre, the popularity of pirate movies ebbs and flows, but an upcoming Ridley Scott project hopes to bring back the genre in a big way.
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Deadline recently reported that Hugh Jackman and Scott are planning a new adaptation of Treasure Island, the iconic Robert Louis Stevenson novel first published in 1883. A bildungsroman crossed with an adventure story, Treasure Island’s tale of buried treasure, deserted islands, and a peg-legged pirate first defined many of the tropes that later came to be associated with swashbuckling stories more broadly. The plot sees its young narrator, Jim Hawkins, brought into the shady world of piracy by the nefarious Long John Silver.
Three Existing Treasure Island Movies Are Already Beloved
The only problem facing Scott and Jackman’s adaptation is the fact that, short of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise itself, there are already three existing movie versions of Treasure Island that are already widely beloved. The first of these, 1954’s Treasure Island by War of the Worlds director Byron Haskin, was Walt Disney’s first full-length live-action movie. Robert Newton’s unforgettable turn as Long John Silver went on to shape the modern cultural image of pirates, with his distinctive accent defining the archetype for decades to come.
While there were earlier silent film versions of Treasure Island in 1918 and 1920 and a 1934 version starring Lionel Barrymore, 1954’s Treasure Island was a huge critical and commercial success that became one of the genre’s defining outings. There were many more attempts to adapt the book in the years that followed, but the next truly legendary one came when TNT assembled an astounding cast for its 1990 take on Treasure Island..r
While boasting an early-career performance from future American Psycho Christian Bale as Jim Hawkins is enough to make this version stand out, a supporting cast that included Charlton Heston, Oliver Reed, Christopher Lee, and Pete Postlethwaite elevated this one even further. Surprisingly faithful to the original novel, this acclaimed adaptation was only outdone by 1996’s Muppet Treasure Island.
Ridley Scott and Hugh Jackman’s Treasure Island Must Learn From Earlier Adaptations
With a superb central turn from Tim Curry and a witty script that stays truthful to the source material while also perfectly parodying its now-familiar tropes, Muppet Treasure Island is both a perfect spoof of the novel and an affectionate adaptation of its plot. Thus, Jackman and Scott’s version of Treasure Island will have a tough time outdoing these earlier adaptations.
That said, the upcoming movie could fare well if it learns the right lessons from these earlier successes. Muppet Treasure Island proves that a bit of levity doesn’t go amiss when adapting such a familiar old text, while 1990’s TNT take proved that sticking to the source material matters. Thus, if Ridley Scott and Hugh Jackman can combine the elements that made earlier adaptations of Treasure Island work over the last few decades, their forthcoming take on the novel has the potential to be another classic.
