Simon Templar is headed back to the big screen. Deadline is reporting that Paramount Pictures is developing a The Saint movie, based on the Leslie Charteris book series about “the Robin Hood of Modern Crime.” Although not yet officially attached, the outlet reveals that Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Robert Evans and Brad Krevoy are likely to produce the new Saint movie with the hope of launching a new big screen franchise.
“The Saint was just originally a character who came to life in my head not so long after I started writing,” the late Charteris is quoted as having said on the author’s official site. “But he was not the first character I thought of. He was, as a matter of fact, the fifth. I went on and created two or three other characters, each of them in an individual book. And then I suppose I got lazy, or I got the idea that it was better to continue and build up one character than to spread yourself around among a dozen. I looked back over the characters I had created so far and picked the Saint, liked him the best, and decided to go on with him.”
The Simon Templar character made his debut in Charteris’ 1928 novel Meet the Tiger. It was followed by Enter the Saint, which Charteris is said to have considered the official start of the long-running book series. That series would continue for more than half a century and inspire quite a few adaptations across a wide variety of mediums, including a popular television series that ran from 1962 to 1969 and introduced the world to future James Bond Roger Moore. Before that, though, a The Saint movie franchise was produced at RKO Pictures between 1938 and 1943. Of course, modern audiences are more likely to remember the 1997 The Saint movie, directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Val Kilmer in the title role.
It was only a few years ago that the attempt was made to reboot The Saint for the small screen. A pilot for a new television series was shot, directed by Con Air‘s Simon West and starring Adam Rayner and Eliza Dushku. It did not end up becoming a series, however, and the pilot has never been officially released.
