Director Jon Turteltaub, who is best known for his work on Disney’s “National Treasure” movies, has recently signed on to devlop (and possibly direct) Fox 2000’s “Beached,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“Beached” tells the story of a chubby 4-year-old child who falls overboard during a family outing and is raised by whales and goes on to become an Olympic swimmer. The film is, perhaps, riding the heels of the US’ electrifying performance in the 2012 Summer Olympics. The movie is not, however, anything like a biopic of US swimmers Ryan Lochte or Michael Phelps.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Beached” has been in development since 1997, starting with a script from Ted Griffin, the writer of Steven Soderbergh’s all-star “Ocean’s Eleven” and more recently “Tower Heist.”

Betty Thomas was originally slated to direct the film, but the project had gone dormant, and Turteltaub was put in place to wake the project up again. Turteltaub will oversee the writing of a new draft, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Jordan Roberts wrote the previous draft.

Turteltaub recently directed “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” for Disney and he is currently working on (preproduction) on CBS Films’ “Last Vegas,” which stars Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Robert De Niro.

By Monique Jones

Monique Jones blogs about race and culture in entertainment, particularly movies and television. You can read her articles at Racialicious, and her new site, COLOR . You can also listen to her new podcast, What would Monique Say.

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