Universal announced yesterday it is developing the historical film 'The Serpent and the Eagle,' penned by former Deep Space Nine producers Hans Beimler and Robert Wolfe.

According to Variety, the Hollywood studio "made a preemptive buy" of the script together with production company Imagine, run by Academy Award-winners Ron Howard and Brian Grazer.

Set during the Spanish invasion of the Aztec empire, the film tells the story of the native slave girl Malinali (also known as 'la Malinche'), who became the mistress of conquistador Hernan Cortez and aided the Spaniard in his conquest of her homeland.

'The Serpent and the Eagle' is one of many films currently under development at Imagine. Howard, who won an Oscar for helming 'A Beautiful Mind,' recently pulled out of directing 'The Alamo,' although he is still onboard as producer. This leaves 'Eagle' as a possible choice for Howard's next directing assignment, together with 'The Burial' and 'Cinderella Man.'

Over at his official web site, Wolfe has posted a series of Frequently Asked Questions concerning the film, including how he and Beimler came up with the idea. "When Hans was doing a polish on the DS9 episode 'For the Uniform,' he named a ship the USS Malinche. In my gringo ignorance, I thought Malinche was a made-up word. Faux Vulcan maybe. I asked Hans (who is a Mexican citizen) about it and he told me the story of 'la Malinche,' Cortes' Aztec mistress. I said, wow, that's a movie. He agreed. We wrote the outline... and then put in on the shelf for three years while we both worked on other projects. Finally we both got some free time, sat down to write it... and there you go."

The original Variety article can be found here, while the FAQ is available at this page. Thanks to 'Andulasia' and Iam Smith for this!

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