Variety reports that Universal Pictures has pegged brothers Gavin and Greg O'Connor to write "Clark & Lewis", a revisionist take on the explorers who were sent West by Thomas Jefferson in search of the mythical Northwest Passage.
Gavin O'Connor, who last helmed the Kurt Russell ice hockey drama "Miracle," will direct and Greg O'Connor will produce. The O'Connors feel there is an undiscovered epic in the story of the mismatched pair who left behind voluminous journals detailling an uneasy relationship between the explorers and a mutual attraction to Sacajawea, their Native American guide. They were part of the caravan organized by Meriwether Lewis, a manic-depressive alcoholic who was Jefferson's former secretary.
Gavin says "They were this country's first astronauts. They were the first white men to really explore the West, the first white men the Indians had ever seen. We want to do an epic with humor and a buddy-picture quality".
The deal is the second historical epic for the pair, who signed on with Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey's Icon Films to make "Boudica," about the Brit who battled the Romans and was posthumously named Britain's first queen.
