Looks like Peter Berg has officially decided to make Battleship his next directing job.

Universal has gone ahead and pegged out 1 July 2011 as the release date for the film, trading an offer to support Berg's planned Afghan war drama Lone Survivor for him making the ship adventure first.

And despite the source material, it sounds like a sea-going action thriller is right up Berg's channel: "I've been consumed with doing one of these since I tried to convince Tom Rothman at Fox to make a film about John Paul Jones, the founder of the American Navy," Berg tells Variety.

"As a kid, I was dragged from Navy museum to museum, and spent so much time on ships, listening to my father talk about the great battles of WWII, I did my high school thesis on the Battle of Midway.

"When this came up, it didn't take me long to find a take for a film that is filled with raucous action-packed naval battles."

So what can we expect? Apparently it's "a contemporary story of an international five-ship fleet engaged in a very dynamic, violent and intense battle." He just won't say who they're fighting against.

As for Lone Survivor, he's happy to shove that back on his schedule a little, since he realises it's a tricky proposition right about now - given that it follows a Navy SEAL team being sent into Afghanistan and getting ambushed.

"It was pretty obvious to me they weren't jumping head over heels to make a war film in the Middle East right now," Berg admits.

Yes, the never-ending tide of board games turned into movies shows no sign of slowing down. Could he make something good out of the concept? We can only hope…

[Source: Variety]

Can Battleship work on screen? Fire your opinion-cannons!