'A-Team' headed to the big screen

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Hollywood's Twentieth Century Fox is working on a big-screen adaptation of the iconic 1980s TV action-adventure series, "The A-Team," Variety.com said.

Set to begin production in June for release in the summer of 2010, the movie is to be directed by "Narc" and "Smokin' Aces" filmmaker Joe Carnahan, and produced by Ridley Scott, with Scott's brother Tony Scott executive producing the picture through their Scott Free banner.

Jules Daly and Stephen J. Cannell, the creator of the TV series, are also producing the movie version. The film is expected to follow the basic framework of the show about a group of American war veterans arrested for an armed robbery their superior ordered them to commit before he was killed. They then escape from a military prison and become mercenaries.

"Tony and I feel that marrying this Scott Free project with Joe's sensibility will result in a fast-paced, exciting franchise, one we hope will be around for years to come," Ridley Scott told Variety.com.

"This was a coveted property, and reimagining a show that I remembered as a kid was tough to turn down," Carnahan told the entertainment industry trade newspaper. "Fox hired me to make it as emotional, real and accessible as possible without cheesing it up."

The original series ran from 1983 to 1986 and starred George Peppard, Mr. T, Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz.