In 2010, because of the Prince of Persia movie, our agents arranged a meeting to see if anything would spark. I'd absolutely been blown away by Black Book (Zwartboek) and thought Paul would do an amazing job with Last Express, if he'd be interested...
We met for drinks in a hotel lobby. I pitched the story, showed him a "movie trailer" I'd made out of game footage (on an iPhone, with headphones). He watched it twice, very intently, then looked up and said: "I'll do it."
Then I spent a year writing (and rewriting) the script. He gave detailed notes on every draft, discussions were in-depth and passionate, until finally we got to a point where we were both happy with it. (You can read that screenplay at
http://jordanmechner.com library.)
Now all we needed was 20 million € to shoot it. Several big and medium-sized fish nibbled but didn't bite. Still, it was a wonderful experience for me to develop a script with Verhoeven--a master director, as sharp, brilliant and energetic as ever at 72.