'In The Lost Lands': Milla Jovovich, Dave Bautista To Star In Paul W.S. Anderson's Adaptation Of George R.R. Martin Story

Paul W.S. Anderson is trying his hand at adapting a George R.R. Martin story. The Resident Evil franchise director is re-teaming with his wife and longtime collaborator Milla Jovovich as well as Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista to adapt Martin's short story In the Lost Lands into a feature film.

Paul W.S. Anderson is going to try to pull off what David Benioff and D.B. Weiss did to mixed results with Game of Thrones: a successful adaptation of a George R.R. Martin story. Can the Monster Hunter director do it? We won't know the answer until In the Lost Lands, a "sprawling epic" based on Martin's short story of the same name, gets made. Variety reports that Anderson, best known for adapting the Resident Evil video games into a schlocky gore fest that spanned six films, will be directing a feature adaptation of In the Lost Lands, set to star Anderson's Resident Evil and Monster Hunter star Milla Jovovich. Dave Bautista is also set to star.

Here is the logline for In the Lost Lands, per Variety:

In the movie, a queen, desperate to fulfill her love, makes a daring play: she hires the sorceress Gray Alys (Jovovich), a woman as feared as she is powerful. Sent to the ghostly wilderness of the Lost Lands, Alys and her guide, the drifter Boyce (Bautista), must outwit and outfight man and demon in this fable that explores the nature of good and evil, debt and fulfillment, love and loss.

In the Lost Lands is a short story written by Martin in the early days of his career that was first published in 2003's Dreamsongs: A Retrospective, a collection of short fiction written by the Game of Thrones author. A short fantasy adventure, it will clearly be expanded by Anderson to become a "sprawling epic."

I'm sure I don't have to say that Anderson operates on a very different level than Benioff and Weiss, who spearheaded the ultimate high-brow prestige fantasy series with Game of Thrones, based on Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. To say that Anderson is the king of B-movie schlock may be an exaggeration, but the filmmaker isn't afraid to go gory and hammy and low-brow, which isn't exactly what people think of when they think of Martin. But perhaps a little schlock wouldn't hurt, and In the Lost Lands might be a big success.

Jeremy Bolt (Resident Evil), Anderson, Jovovich, Bautista and Jonathan Meisner are producers on In the Lost Lands, through their production company Dream Bros Entertainment, along with Constantin Werner.