Christopher Yost To Script Chinese-American Production Of 'The Monkey King' For Global Audiences

It’s a great time for screenwriter Christopher Yost. He’s been gaining notoriety for his body on work on numerous Marvel projects, including Thor: The Dark World in 2013, and all ahead of the upcoming threequel, Thor: Ragnarock and Stewart Hendler’s Max Steel. Suffice it to say, Friday was a big day for Yost as news became public on his latest cinematic east-meets-west venture.

For this, we leer over to the popularity of the mythological story of The Monkey King, written centuries ago by Wu Cheng’en and adapted for film after film after film. The past several years has shown its continuing viability as a popular brand, one which might as well have earned a comparison to most comic-book properties as of late; In recent years, Jet Li gave a dual performance in the 2008 film, The Forbidden Kingdom, in which he portrayed the very same role ahead of Soi Cheang’s Donnie Yen-led The Monkey King last year and next year’s sequel with Aaron Kwok leading, and director Tian Xiao Peng’s CG-animated fanfare, Monkey King: Hero Is Back.

Take this, plus the forthcoming Journey To The West 2 and the current development of the adaptation of The Monkey King’s Daughter, and you have all the more reason to believe that the popular fantasy fable won’t be going away any time soon. Alas, reassuring this much further is a new exclusive report from Variety detailing Yost’s next endeavor, which he describes as “the opportunity of a lifetime.”. A new partnership has been announced between Abstract Entertainment in Los Angeles, and Eracme Entertainment in China for “a globe-hopping, modern adventure” for English-language audiences. Yost is joined by special effects craftsman Richard Taylor, who shares credits on The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, District 9 and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and will be designing the films, as well as producers Mike Bundlie (Hercules, Oblivion) and Barry Levine (The Marvel Experience) from Abstract Entertainment and their partners overseas at Eracme.

As a noteworthy mention, Cheang’s The Monkey King is currently awaiting a U.S. release with producers at Global Star Productions following its representation at the Urban Action Showcase & Expo late last year.

Yost is also poised to bring He-Man back to the big screen while an official start date for Abstract/Eracme’s project is currently being worked out as the team seeks a director for Yost’s screenplay.