Fox's "fat kid raised by whales to be Olympic swimmer" movie developed as possible last original idea in Hollywood

By Sean O'Neal | August 28, 2012 | 4:59pm

Aux Features Film

After drowning in a deluge of remakes, reboots, sequels, board game and public domain adaptations, and other franchising facsimiles, the studio film industry sparked to what could be one of its last remaining original ideas today, involving the unlikely source of National Treasure producer Jon Turteltaub. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Turteltaub will direct the Fox 2000 project Beached, the story of "a chubby 4-year-old child who falls overboard during a family outing, is raised by whales and goes on to become an Olympic swimmer"—a premise that, while completely ridiculous, is not based on an existing property or well-worn story, and is therefore beautiful, simply beautiful.

In fact, Beached bears little resemblance to anything beyond maybe "Tarzan meets Free Willy," which, in these dark days of 2012, would be a pitch so perfectly, unexpectedly naïve that no doubt any studio executives who might have heard it immediately burst into tears, as though reduced once more to innocent children through the simple joys of the circus or a big bowl of strawberry ice cream. And any cynical suggestions that the film could also capitalize on the popularity of recent Olympic swimmers like Ryan Lochte were hopefully swatted away, for fear that they would taint the purity of their "fat kid raised by whales" movie. After all, it may be all we've got left.