Tarsem Singh's War Of The Gods

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Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto has signed on to star in War Of The Gods for Tarsem Singh and Relativity Media, a new Greek mythology epic which will be filmed in a like 300.

With Percy Jackson and Clash Of The Titans hitting cinemas, 2010 truly is the year of the Greek deities. Gods – which started development around the same time as Titans – is being bankrolled by Universal, who must be hoping that the interest in all things mythological will survive this year’s onslaught.

Relativity Media paid mid-six against seven figures for the script by Charley and Vlas Parlapanides. Sleeper Code/Machine Gun Preacher scribe Jason Keller penned the most recent draft of the script. The official logline follows:

“A purported bastard who retains an allegiance to his mother despite the fact that he longs to join the quest of a king who is battling demons in ancient Greece later embarks on a grail of discovery that has him finding he is the king’s son and also fated to become his country’s greatest hero as he leads the successful war against long-imprisoned Titans who are hoping to use the demons to restore their power.”

Pinto will portray Phaedra, an oracle priestess who must join Theseus (played by Henry Cavill) on his quest to prevent the cataclysmic war from erupting.

Warner Bros had toyed around with the idea of buying the Gods script for their remake of Clash of the Titans. Obviously, Clash was the first to go into production, and will hit theaters on April 2nd 2010. The same week production will begin on War of Gods. Universal Pictures will release the film.

Tarsem starts shooting in April. He says:

“It’s turning into, basically, Caravaggio meets Fight Club,” he said. “It’s a really hardcore action film done in Renaissance painting style. I want to see how that goes; it’s turned into something really cool. This guy who I really love, who’s the only one person in it right now, is the brother in The Tudors, Henry Cavill. I’m going for a very contemporary look on top of that so I’m kind of going with, you know, Renaissance time with electricity. So it’s a bit like Baz Luhrman doing Romeo + Juliet in Mexico; it’s just talking a particular Greek tale and half contemporising it and telling it.”

Tarsem is an Indian-born music video director (”Hold On” by En Vogue, “Sweet Lullaby” by Deep Forest and “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M.), became acclaimed in the world of commercial directors, and made his feature film directorial debut with The Cell, followed by the 2006 film The Fall. He is known for his incredibly visual imagery and art direction.