The Prince of Persia film adaptation, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, hit theaters in May 2010. In addition to the film not performing well, controversy kept the project from developing into a franchise. As many likely recall, the heart of said controversy rested in Jake Gyllenhaal, a white man, being cast in a role that should’ve gone to someone of Iranian descent. In a recent interview, Gyllenhaal spoke about the lessons he learned from being cast in the film. Most notably, he’s learned to be more “thoughtful” when it comes to selecting roles.
Gyllenhaal touched on this during a press tour for Spider-Man: Far From Home, in which he stars as Mysterio. It’s the actor’s first blockbuster role since Prince of Persia; given his recently revealed thoughts about casting, it’s easy to see why. The actor told Yahoo the following when speaking about his involvement with the 2010 adaptation:
I think I learned a lot from that movie in that I spend a lot of time trying to be very thoughtful about the roles that I pick and why I’m picking them,” he said. “And you’re bound to slip up and be like, ‘That wasn’t right for me,’ or ‘That didn’t fit perfectly.’ There have been a number of roles like that. And then a number of roles that do.
Prince of Persia is unlikely to see the light of day on film again for quite some time. Unfortunately, it also seems as though the game series has been put out to pasture. In early 2018, franchise creator Jordan Mechner revealed he’d been trying to jumpstart the series once more. Evidently, his efforts were fruitless. While he would still love to revive Prince of Persia, he is presently devoting his time to a book about the first game’s creation.
