Texan-born director Kevin Reynolds gave a new and exciting  vision to the most adorable bandit in the universe with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.  Now he brings Alexander Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo to the big screen with lots of zest, breathtaking opulence, and awesome high adventure.

Kevin Reynolds did not start out as a filmmaker. After graduating from Baylor University with a law degree, Reynolds wrote speeches for the then Governor of Texas. After a few years he opted to pursue a career in filmmaking, enrolling first in the film school at the University of Texas in Austin and then at the University of Southern California's film school.

John Milius directed Reynolds' writing thesis ""Ten Soldiers" under the title Red Dawn. His other film thesis "Proof" was seen by Steven Spielberg, who asked Reynolds to write a feature length screenplay around its premise. This lead to his directing debut with Fandango, which was followed by The Beast of War,  Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Rapa Nui, Waterworld, and 187.

For Reynolds, working on an epic tale like The Count of Monte Cristo was an offer he couldn't refuse. "The title is well-known throughout the world, which gives it an automatic audience," he says. "It has all the elements of a riveting story: friendship and betrayal, love and heartbreak, action and adventure. I thought it would be rewarding to do something with such a famous classic novel," Reynolds continues. "Then I sat down and read the book, found out what it was really about and found that the task was going to be much more difficult than I thought because the book is quite dense. We had to set about a way of making it more cinematic."

The screenplay was written by Jay Wolpert, who spent much of his professional life as a producer/ creator and developer of television game, reality, and talk shows - he was Head of Development for Chuck Barris Productions and a key member of the creative team at Goodson- Todman Productions. After leaving Goodson-Todman, Wolpert went on to become an independent producer of television shows, developing not only games but other genres as well, including a science fiction adventure series based on Phillip Jose Farmers classic 'Riverworld," books for ABC; "Wicked Loving Lies," a period soap opera based on the book by Rosemary Rodgers, for CBS; and "Fit for a King," a sitcom for NBC. By the early nineties, there had been, at one time or another, eight of Wolpert's shows on American television, and at least a dozen foreign versions airing in at least fourteen countries around the world.

Nonetheless, Wolpert found himself being drawn more and more to writing. Starting with an episode of the TV western cult hit, "The Lazarus Man," Wolpert then turned to features. In addition to "The Count of Monte Cristo," his upcoming features include "The Year of the Brat," "Fifty Days of Bravel" and .'.'Pirates of the Caribbean."

While Wolpert insists that he longs to write a screenplay that takes place in the present, he cheerfully admits that "I never met a sword I didn't like."

"Storytelling is not simply about action, but also about character,"' writer Jay Wolpert adds. "We have a Count of Monte Cristo' which has all the infrastructure, all the motivation and all the character of the Robert Donat `Count of Monte Cristo,' but it also has the action that todays audiences are used to."

"Classic tales such as 'The Count of Monte cristo' capture the imagination of audiences around the world," says producer Roger Birnbaum. "This movie takes all the winning elements of the classic swashbuckling movie and reworks it for a contemporary audience. This is the first true swashbuckler in some time that combines realism, action and intrigue."

"The Count of Monte Cristo" is different from previous versions,"' says producer Gary Barber. "It's different because we follow some of the events in the book more closely than some previous films, which have taken creative license. We have given the story its own distinctive feel. The characters have more depth and follow quite closely the ending of the book."

"I think it's one of those great tales," says Barber. "It also has romance and a bit of comedy, and the themes of revenge and betrayal all add up to a compelling entertainment. The book has withstood the test of time, and we thought that the timing would be right because there hasn't been a theatrical feature of 'The Count of Monte Cristo` made in a long time."

"A lot of people ask me,'what are your films about?" remarks Kevin Reynolds. "I think it is an obsession with a loss of innocence. I think there is an element of that in all the pictures I have done. Maybe that is what there is for me in The Count of Monte Cristo. There is this young, innocent, well-intentioned guy who gets run over by a bunch of ruthless people. He goes back and tries to seek revenge which he thinks will fulfill him and make him whole again. But is revenge satisfying? As the Richard Harris character says: 'It's a meal endlessly cooked and seldom eaten.' So that's what this film is/ an exploration of one man's quest for revenge."