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Producers Announce Plans For Film Adaptation of Paradise Lost

Hollywood, CA--In the wake of the success of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, producers at Dreamworks announced plans to bring John Milton's epic account of the battle between God and Satan, Paradise Lost, to the screen.

In a press release, director David Larson described his approach to adapting the poem for the big screen. "The Passion was Gibson's imagining of the story of the Passion of Jesus, and Paradise Lost is Milton's imagining of the story of the fall of man. Eden State is my imagining of Milton's imagining of the story."

Larson admits to taking a few liberties with the story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from paradise. "Milton wrote Paradise Lost to explain God's actions to man. He wanted religion to be more accessible. If you look in the Bible, the account of the story is pretty short. I've made some changes to Milton's work to make it more accessible to modern audiences between the ages of 12 and 26," Larson said. Among the changes made are setting the story in a fictitious college called Eden State University, replacing Satan's invasion of Eden with a madcap prank war, and instead of eating from the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve are expelled for cheating on an economics exam. "Angels and serpents are removed from the lives of modern audiences. But all kids can relate to trying to stick it to the stuffy old dean," said Larson.

Larson hopes to cast Ashton Kutcher and Kirsten Dunst as Adam and Eve, the college-students-by-day and indie-rock-gods-by-night who will eventually get expelled. Will Ferell has already signed to play Satan. "I'm thinking James Gandolfini would be great to play the dean. I want someone who can be a hard ass but will eventually be cool and let the kids back into school," Larson said. "Also, how cool would it be to see Tony Soprano get a bucket of pudding dumped on him?"

Added a spokesperson for Dreamworks: "College movies have always been popular, and students are always willing to see the movie version of a boring book that they will be forced to read. So we figure, combine that with the success of Mel Gibson and we can't lose."

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