Jake Gyllenhaal's Prince of Persia gets date

What do you get when you mix medieval Persia, an evil vizier, an hourglass trickling sand that has the power to transform an entire village into demons, and a dagger that can reverse the flow of time? According to Disney's upcoming release schedule, the answer is Jake Gyllenhaal.

A bearded and shirtless Gyllenhaal will storm the big screen as Prince Dastan in Jerry Bruckheimer's (Pirates of the Carribean) film adaption of the 2003 Ubisoft game Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time. Ubisoft's game is a rebooted version of Jordan Mechner's 1989 MS-DOS and Macintosh game, Prince of Persia. The film, directed by Mike Newell, will be released May 28, 2010.

Joining Gyllenhaal as Nizam the evil Vizier is the poly-national talent himself, Ben Kingsley, in his (nearly) signature villain role. Kingsley has played a character of Iranian descent before, in The House of Sand and Fog. He's also played characters of Indian, Eastern European, Jewish and British background.

In a sly marketing move, Bruckheimer placed posters advertising the 2010 film around Time Square in his latest film, Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Prince of Persia may not be as meditative a story of time-travel as former Gyllenhaal film Donnie Darko, but, judging by Bruckheimer's list of blockbusters, its chances for big-hit status are high.

Related links:

News: Watch Ben Kingsley portray Minor Threat's Ian Mackaye
MovieChronicles.com: New Poster to appear in Confessions of a Shopaholic
ComingSoon.net: Ben Kingsley on the Prince of Persia set

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