by: S. Scott Stanikmas

In a piece of “WTF” news, it looks like Warner Bros is moving forward with an adaptation of the first part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Inferno. But the kicker is that the studio is moving forward with the film in a direction that doesn’t jibe with the source material.

Deadline is reporting that the studio picked up a pitch from screenwriter Dwain Worrell that sets the piece up as an epic love story.

The original story is more of a social and political satire and overall an allegory about one man’s finding and understanding about God.

Dante’s story finds the author writing a fictional version of himself on a search for his dead love Beatrice. He’s guided by the spirit of the poet Virgil who guides him through the nine circles of Hell and into Purgatory. Eventually Virgil changes into Beatrice as Dante is guided through Paradise. The thing about this is, Beatrice is dead and can’t be saved so Dante’s quest is more about understanding and acceptance.

Changing the film into a love story feels more like the move a film would take, but it also negates the point of the original story. If the studio does a “happy ending” and has Dante eventually save Beatrice that would do a complete disservice to the story. But I also don’t think they’d go with Dante just accepting his love is lost forever and moving on.

Whatever the case may be, Warner Bros is looking to this as a possible franchise so I’d expect an epic, sweeping Lord of the Rings-style saga if and when this finally gets down to production.