Steven Spielberg, who once rocked the world’s nuts off with dinosaurs and Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, has optioned another Michael Crichton property, his unfinished, posthumously published pirate novel, Pirate Latitudes, “an adventure story set off the coast of Jamaica in 1665.” 

Spielberg plans to produce and is considering directing. DreamWorks Studios describes the novel as the story of “a daring plan to infiltrate Port Royal, one of the world’s richest and most notorious cities, and raid a Spanish galleon filled with treasure.”

[Dreamworks CEO Stacy] Snider says [Pirate Latitudes and Pirates of the Caribbean] won’t clash because Pirate Latitudes will be more grounded in reality, as opposed to the supernatural fantasy of the Disney films. [USA Today]

What, no dancing ghosts and Johnny Depp in makeup?  How could such a pirate movie possibly hope to entertain me?  Anyway, no word yet on possible casting, but upon hearing the news, Matthew McConnaughey coughed up some bong smoke and said, “A galleon filled with treasure?  Say man, I like the sound a that,” then zoned out for a while and played the bongos.

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^{This picture is related somehow, isn’t it?}

When Michael Crichton died last year, I wasn’t mature enough to avoid the obvious ER joke.  But more importantly, he left behind a book about pirates that was discovered in his files by an assistant.

HarperCollins plans to back “Pirate Latitudes,” ['Piratitudes' would've been way better -Ed.]which is set in Jamaica in 1665, with a first printing of 1 million copies.  Story revolves around plans by a notorious pirate named Hunter and the governor of Jamaica and to raid a Spanish galleon filled with treasure. [...] the untitled book will be completed based on the writer’s notes. An author has not yet been hired to finish that work. [Variety]

Don’t judge me: I loved Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery, so a Crichton story about pirates actually sounds kind of awesome.  *swallows excess saliva back down* Plus, there’s no way it could be worse than Pirates of the Caribbean 3.  However, it’s not like the guy got hit by a truck one day, he was dying of cancer; if he’d wanted the book published it seems like he would’ve said something.  Oh, Variety also adds that Crichton wrote the book “before his death.”  That’s important to note. I always thought Hemingway jumped the shark right about the time he blew his brains out.

Michael Crichton, the six foot nine summa cum laude graduate of Harvard and Harvard Medical School, creator of E.R., and writer of books such as Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, died “after a courageous and private battle with cancer” yesterday.  (I don’t think I need to quote Patton Oswalt’s bit about obituary writers here, but I’ll attach it after the jump.)

Crichton wrote a ridiculous amount of books, some of which I even read (!).  My favorite was probably The Great Train Robbery.  My favorite story about Michael Crichton himself?

At 14, he had an article in the New York Times travel section and wrote for the student newspaper at Harvard, where he studied English, only to find his writing style damned by a tutor with grades of C+. In what he describes as a scientific experiment, Crichton submitted an essay by George Orwell under his own name. It was marked B-. [Guardian]

Anyway, I imagine it probably sucks for a guy who writes about being able to clone dinosaurs and create pigeon-sized elephants with genetic engineering to find out he’s going to die of cancer.  Seriously?  You can’t cure this yet?  What the hell have you fags been doing back there? …In conclusion, dino-pope.

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