Warner Bros Alchemy

Brazil’s best-selling author, Paulo Coelho, believes that after a 10-year search he has found the formula to make his acclaimed novel “The Alchemist” into a blockbuster movie.
Coelho, one of the world’s most widely read authors whose books have sold nearly 40 million copies in 56 languages, spent a decade sifting through film scripts before finding a screenplay for his seminal work that pleased him.
“For the first time, in (Laurence) Fishburne’s case, I liked what I read,” 56-year-old Coelho said in an e-mail interview while traveling abroad.
Fishburne, who starred in “The Matrix,” will write, direct and appear in “The Alchemist” which tells the story of a Spanish shepherd boy during the Roman Catholic Inquisition who travels to the Pyramids in Egypt in search of treasure.
Warner Bros. Pictures, which bought film rights in the early 1990s, plans to start filming in Jordan by the end of this year for scheduled release in 2004.
British actor Jeremy Irons and U.S. pop icon Madonna play leading roles in the film, which has an $80 million budget.
“Since 1993, I’ve been rejecting scripts. I don’t think Warner Brothers wanted to use a text if the book’s author publicly criticized it,” said Coelho.
He added that this would be the only one of his books to be adapted for the cinema.
“I decided not to sell any more film rights after ‘The Alchemist’ deal with Warner Brothers,” he said, noting that his agent received weekly proposals.
He said he had no regrets or fears about how “The Alchemist” might be portrayed on cinema screens.
“What’s done is done,” he said.

Source: Maria Pia Palermo – Reuters