Peter and Michael Spierig are set to direct a modern version of Captain Blood, a 1935 film from the legendary Errol Flynn that itself was adapted from a novel by Rafael Sabatini (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com).

The original story told of a doctor convicted of treason and sold in to slavery. He escaped and with some of his fellow slaves stole a Spanish ship and become pirates of, unbelievably, the Caribbean. However the new version is going for a radical change.

The rumour back in July of 2008 was that Phillip Noyce was to develop and direct the film, however that disappeared and now Variety through Total Film is telling us that the brothers Peter and Michael Spierig (twin brother directors) are set to direct the tale, but with a twist.

The producer Bill Gerber was astonished when he started to hear the pitch regarding the old pirate story in space, but then he bought it and now the two are set to put the classic film into space.

"At first, I felt like I was in that scene in The Player, where Buck Henry pitches the sequel to The Graduate...But when I took a look at their animatic depiction of a pirate battle in space, it had such a distinctive visual look to it that I said, 'Great, I get it.'"

I'm glad you do, because I don't. I'm really struggling to see it and keep thinking, like James, it's a spoof of a film, or like a crossover film. It doesn't work well with me.

Of course what they'll do is rework the entire concept of Captain Blood from the ground up and they'll come up with something a bit more palatable. Or so we hope.