Out of all sixty Game of Thrones episodes there are a few that stand out from the crowd as some of the best TV has to offer. “Battle of the Bastards” and “The Winds of Winter” are two of these, and were both directed by the show’s current golden boy, Miguel Sapochnik. It looks like Hollywood is now trawling the realm of TV for promising new directors, and it was just announced yesterday that Sapochnik is working on a feature film based on the legendary hero Sinbad.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Studio 8 won a bidding war for the story rights to Sinbad, who made his first appearance to Western audiences in Sir Richard F. Burton’s story collection The Arabian Nights. Sinbad sails the seven seas and embarks on plenty of adventures that he always comes back from with arms full of gold and jewels.

Sapochnik is actually not new to Hollywood, as his first (and, to date, last) feature was the not-that-well received Repo Men, starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker. Sapochnik has had some time to hone his skills, and with two of the coolest Game of Thrones episodes under his belt, he’s the perfect choice for a film about a swashbuckling sailor.

Here is Studio 8’s statement:

Sinbad was a rare comprehensive and engaging pitch which lends itself to an international audience and big visual set pieces but also distinct and unique actor roles for a diverse cast of characters. This project is part of Studio 8’s ongoing commitment to working closely with filmmakers on the re-imagination of genres.

The last time Sinbad was on the big screen it was for the animated Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, starring the voice talents of Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones, but the hero is also considered a classic Hollywood staple, as he appeared in 1958’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, directed by the stop-motion animation legend Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen’s epic Clash of the Titans was recently rebooted for modern audiences, so we’ll see if Sapochnik’s Sinbad will take any cues from its ’50s predecessor.

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