Warner Bros. has signed on Michael and Peter Spierig to direct and John Brownlow to write an updated version of Captain Blood, the 1935 swashbuckler pirate classic that starred Errol Flynn as a wrongly imprisoned British doctor who escapes to become a pirate in the Caribbean, according to Variety.

The Spierig brothers got hired because of their innovative idea to set the pirate film in space.

After WB and producer Bill Gerber dusted off the library title and had Brownlow do a faithful first draft, they sought out pitches from filmmakers. The Spierig siblings won the gig with a bold animatic presentation, Gerber said.

Gerber said that despite the radical period and venue switch, the film will be fairly faithful to a plot in which the doctor, Peter Blood, joins up with a French pirate (played in the original by Basil Rathbone), only to clash with the buccaneer when the woman he loves (Olivia de Havilland) is captured by the pirate skipper.

"There are some things you don't mess with, and that is as classic a movie storyline as you will ever find," Gerber said.

No production date has been set.