Bestselling author Paulo Coelho has been talking to Variety about the long-gestating movie version of his hugely successful novel The Alchemist.
The project, announced in Cannes in 2008, will apparently shoot before the year’s end, although Laurence Fishburne is now no longer attached as director due to his CSI commitments.
The Weinstein Co. will oversee the project, and Coelho said “If there is one person in the world who can make a movie out of the ‘Alchemist’ it’s Harvey Weinstein. We had a very long conversation about how it should be, how it should not be. At the end of the day it’s his movie. It’s my book, but it’s his movie.”
According to Coelho, the screenplay is three months away from completion, although there’s still no word on who will now direct the $60m project.
