1. After the success of Star Trek, Paramount hired writer Hossein Amini to script a Jack Ryan movie for Chris Pine.

2. Paramount buys a spec script called Dubai and tells writer Adam Cozad to make that the Jack Ryan movie.

3. Unhappy with that take, Paramount hired Anthony Peckham to rewrite Cozad’s script.

4. Then writer Steve Zaillian was brought on, but quickly abandoned ship.

5. Project goes into limbo.

6. David Koepp gets 7-figures to rewrite Cozad’s script. Which of the hundreds of drafts lying around Paramount’s offices will be the starting point for Koepp’s version is anyone’s guess.

7. 40 more writers are hired and fired.

8. Eight years later, the screenwriting robot is finally complete and Robo-Writer 9000 electoni-pens the perfect rewrite in 4 minutes. None of the human writers get an on-screen credit.

Jack Bender (“Lost”) is attached to direct. That much has not changed… for now. (Deadline)

_{Once again, thank you, Internet.}

Warner Bros. has hired Sherlock Holmes writer Anthony Peckham to do a complete rewrite on Yucatan as a star vehicle for Robert Downey Jr. The actor will also produce the film with his wife Susan Downey through their Team Downey production company. Awwww, I love family affairs. Maybe their kid can mark the scenes with a little clapboard.

In the film, Downey will play a deep-sea salvage expert hired to steal a mysterious hidden treasure hidden deep underwater in the Mayan ruins of Yucatan. So far Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson haven’t wiggled their way into the project. God knows they love looking for treasure together and getting into trouble along the way. Yucatan was originally a passion project for the late and great actor Steve McQueen. He compiled over 1500 pages of notes but never got the film off the ground before dying in 1980. Hope he’s cool with his kids handing it over to Downey. A vengeful McQueen zombie would be the worst kind of zombie. (Deadline)

Anthony Peckham, the writer behind Sherlock Holmes and Invictus, is Paramount’s choice to pen the latest Jack Ryan film, Empire Online is reporting. The film, starring Chris Pine and directed by Jack Bender, will mark the 5th time the iconic Tom Clancy character has appeared on the silver screen.

In the film, Ryan and his trusty sidekick Watson will attempt to stop an attack on Nelson Mandela as he watches a rugby game atop the Tower of London. That’s my guess, anyway. What do I look like, a god damn 19th century detective?