Mike Newell has been directing films since the 1960s yet his name is primarily known by today’s movie going audience as the director of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Then again, maybe it is films that live on in the memories of most more than the name considering he directed the likes of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco and the Oscar-nominated Enchanted April which is seeing a special edition release in May. Up next for the helmer is the sword and sandal epic Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time based on the video game starring Jake Gyllenhaal and due in theaters on May 28, 2010, but Variety brings word of his follow-up feature based on a 1930s children’s novel.
Newell is set to direct The Box of Delights based on John Masefield’s novel about a boy entrusted with a magic box that allows him to travel through time. Frank Cottrell Boyce who wrote Millions for Danny Boyle (a film I still need to see) is adapting the novel for the screen.
The director was quoted by Variety saying, “I first heard ‘Box of Delights’ as a radio play on the BBC when I was a boy,” Newell said. “I was immediately seduced by the tingling, opening harp music and the fantastical, mysterious, magic story that followed.”
