Warner Bros. hires Bondarchuk to make 'Odysseus'

Russian filmmaker Fyodor Bondarchuk, famous for action-packed war movies "The Ninth Company" and "Stalingrad," has been hired by Warner Bros. to direct a large-scale Hollywood rendition of the Greek epic "The Odyssey," to be titled "Odysseus."

Bondarchuk told the Russian newspaper Izvestia this week that the script, by acclaimed writer Jeremy Doner of American television series "The Killing" and "Damages," is being finalized and filming will start around the end of the year.

The original ancient Greek poem "The Odyssey," traditionally attributed to the poet Homer, follows the story of the hero Odysseus returning home after fighting in the Trojan War.

Warner Bros. already made a movie about the poem's prequel, "The Illiad," under the title "Troy," about a decade ago. That film made almost $500 million at box offices worldwide. Rumor has it that the new "Odysseus" will be set in space.

Bondarchuk will presumably have to pass on making a movie about Pavel Durov, the creator of Russia's most popular social network, VKontakte. He told Izvestia that the tentatively titled "Durov's Code" will most likely have a different director.

Bondarchuk, whose film "Stalingrad" was nominated for an Oscar last year, is the son of legendary Soviet filmmaker Sergei Bondarchuk, who got an Academy Award in the late 1960s for an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic "War and Peace."