Washington, Aug 19 Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has given up all plans of directing a film based on the cult British TV series The Prisoner.

Nolan was to direct a big budget blockbuster version of the 1968 show starring Patrick McGoohan, and his exit has now kicked of rumours that he plans to start early with his third Batman movie.

The director has, however, left behind The Prisoner in a complete mess. The movie's producer Barry Mendel has said they might not be able to start on the film before movie executives see the level of success that its new TV version - featuring Ian McKellen and Jim Caviezel - achieves.

Contactmusic quoted Mendel as telling CineFools: "Nolan has dropped out of it but we have a first draft (of the script) by David and Janet Peoples who wrote Twelve Monkeys. It's a good draft and we're working on the script right now.

"If the series was wildly popular that might effect us. The screenplay (we've got) is such a re-imagination of the series, if you think of The Avengers that wasn't a commercially successful film but it was very much in the spirit of the original show, this looks and feels so different that the tenants of the show are apparent but the execution of it is so different that I think it is unrecognisable." (ANI)