Christopher Nolan drops 'Prisoner' remake

Christopher Nolan has shelved plans to direct a big screen remake of cult TV series The Prisoner.

The Dark Knight helmer had been developing an update of the Patrick McGoohan show for Universal, but chose to make science fiction thriller Inception at Warner Bros instead.

Speaking to CineFools at the Australian premiere of Funny People, producer Barry Mendel admitted that Nolan had departed the project but plans are still afoot to revive The Prisoner as a feature film.

"Chris Nolan has dropped out of it but we have a first draft by David and Janet Peoples who wrote Twelve Monkeys and David wrote Unforgiven and it's a good draft and we're working on the script right now," he said.

Mendel noted that his movie version will be substantially different from the forthcoming ITV/AMC TV remake of The Prisoner, which stars James Caviezel and Sir Ian McKellen.

"If the series was wildly popular that might effect us but the screenplay that David and Janet wrote was such a re-imagination of the series, if you think of The Avengers that wasn't a commercially successful film but it was very much in the spirit of the original show," he explained.

"This looks and feels so different that the tenants of the show are apparent but the execution of it is so different that I think it is unrecognisable, whereas the TV show is a well done, modernly shot updated version of the original show, but much more faithful to the original show."

> Video: The Prisoner preview