Roy Lee Can't Get the Rights to His Dream Project

The Big Picture

Roy Lee is working on a
Bioshock
movie with Francis Lawrence on board to direct.
Lee’s dream project, a Kurtz film based on
Heart of Darkness
, faces challenges due to rights.
Lee also attempted a modern-day sequel to
The Thing
with Frank Darabont, which never materialized.

Roy Lee is busy working on the Bioshock movie, which he confirmed is still in the works with none other than Francis Lawrence directing it. Although the film will be a smaller version than its initial format due to budget cuts, the Netflix original will make the light of day. Yet, the same isn’t applicable to other projects the producer wished to back up. Despite being responsible for recent horror hits like Barbarian, Lee did admit that his dream project is a long ways away from getting made. During his appearance at the Producers on Producing panel at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con, hosted by Collider’s own Steve Weintraub, he shared that his greatest wish is to make a film based on Joseph Conrad‘s classic novel, Heart of Darkness.

The production would be called Kurtz, and it would follow the character from Conrad’s book during his time in Vietnam. However, given that Francis Ford Coppola had already tapped into the character’s journey amid the war in 1979’s Apocalypse Now, it is up to the Oscar winner to sell the rights to the idea. According to Lee, the project would function as an origin story to Coppola’s movie:

“It was like an English language
Apocalypto
. It turns out that because Francis Coppola had created the version of Kurtz that was in Vietnam, we would have to get his rights in order to do it, and he wanted a lot of money just to do it. It was just impossible to get the clearance to do it.”

The producer even admitted that a script was already done, before it came to his attention that The Godfather director would have the rights to Kurtz’s arc. After all, Heart of Darkness is in the public domain, and given that the storyline for the dream project was a prequel to Apocalypse Now, he thought that the film could get made.

The Producer Also Attempted to Make a Sequel to 1982’s ‘The Thing’

This isn’t the first time that Lee faced a roadblock as producer. During the panel, he also admitted that he and writer-director Frank Darabont had joined forces to create a modern-day sequel to 1982’s The Thing. Instead of a follow-up movie, the duo was set to make a series set years after the events that took place in the OG film. Although Lee was planning to do it with Darabont after the latter wrapped The Walking Dead, the project never came to fruition.

Keep an eye on Collider for more coverage from SDCC, including news from upcoming Producers on Producing panels.