Hugh Grant and Adolescence’s Owen Cooper could be joining Hugh Jackman in Ridley Scott’s Treasure Island, the director has said.
Update: On the home stretch of a vast (avast!) career, Ridley Scott plans to make Treasure Island, an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 19th century novel, his next movie.
Speaking to Collider during the press trail for The Dog Stars, the filmmaker confirmed that he’s currently working on it, and that he’s in the midst of casting.
Hugh Jackman’s already part of the line up as Long John Silver, the duplicitous one-legged pirate. But Scott has said, “I hope Hugh Grant, and I hope the kid from Adolescence.”
That’s Owen Cooper he’s referring to there, who’s won awards for his turn as a troubled teen in Netflix’s hit series.
Our guess is that he’ll be playing Jim Hawkins, the story’s young hero (and, in the book, narrator).
Hugh Grant’s harder to predict, though we’d take a wild guess at Ben Gunn, another key character from the story who, like Grant, is a famous cheese enthusiast.
Scott likes to work quickly, and true to form, he’s getting started on Treasure Island in a matter of months. “I shoot November 1,” he says.
It sounds as though the actors are still in negotiations, given the “I hope” bit of Scott’s sentences. We’ll keep you posted.
Previously…
23rd July 2026: Last month, word emerged of Ridley Scott and Hugh Jackman’s plans to make an adaptation of Treasure Island. The flashpoint for the project was a screenplay by Jack Thorne, which is said to have impressed Scott to such a degree that he’s cleared the decks to make it his next movie.
Scott and Jackman have since been shopping the project around for a studio backer, and they may have one: Sony Pictures is said to be in negotiations according to Deadline.
Given Scott’s appetite for big epics and boats at sea, this is likely to be a lavish production with a price tag to match. But Scott also likes to work quickly these days; his latest film, The Dog Stars, shot last summer and is in cinemas this August.
If it all proceeds smoothly, Scott’s Treasure Island could be sailing onto a screen near you in 2029. We’ll bring you more as we hear it.
Our original story follows…
9th June 2026: Just a quick status update where Ridley Scott is concerned. The original plan for the bearded one was he’d jump from Gladiator II straight onto the long-mooted biopic of the Bee Gees.
But – sod that – the Bee Gees project didn’t come along quickly enough, and so he’s now made The Dog Stars, which is heading our way over the coming months. Once he’s caused a few headlines – it’s tradition, after all – during the promotion of that film, he’s straight back on set, with Treasure Island now apparently leaping the queue.
Jack Thorne – who recently penned Lord Of The Flies for the BBC, amongst his many other projects – has written the screenplay for this, adapting, of course, Robert Louis Stevenson’s (out of copyright!) novel.
Hugh Jackman is signing on the dotted line to play Long John Silver in the movie, and the project is being shopped around studios now. It won’t take long to find a buyer, and Scott will presumably want to be shooting this by the end of the year. He’s not likely to piss about.
It certainly throws Scott’s other projects into some degree of disarray. The Bee Gees thing looks gone, the idea of doing Gladiator III – as mooted at the end of 2024 – might be in limbo.
He told us around the same time that he had another science fiction film planned, and unless this Treasure Island takes quite the left turn (hey! Disney did it!), this ain’t it.
Fair play to the man. While the rest of us scramble for crumbs of work, Ridley Scott – at 88 – continues to smash them out.
We’ll find out a bit more presumably when the press tour for The Dog Stars gets into full flow. Perfectly sure he’ll be a in a great mood, and no headlines will be generated by the interviews he gives.
