If, at first, you don’t succeed in adapting a property incongruous to film as a medium, say “screw it” and try again. I like to think that’s the thinking behind Deadline‘s story, which reports that Warner Bros., Thunder Road, and Motion Theory are looking toward The Guinness Book of World Records — arguably one of the least-based-in-narrative books one could imagine — as the basis for an action-adventure film.

Daniel Chun (The Office, The Simpsons) is working on the screenplay, with the assignment requiring him to translate various records into a blockbuster that, at the same time, has “global appeal.” So, we can expect that woman who bulges out her eyes, somebody whose entire body is tattooed, a person who played the world’s longest guitar solo, and so on to provide clues that lead to an amazing treasure of untold riches. (That’s only what I’d guess the film ends up being about.) I’m sorry to judge from the outset and everything, but… I don’t know if this film is going to be very good.

Fret not, because Warner Bros. aren’t going completely off the deep end just yet. Deadline has also learned that the studio will develop a much more traditional outing: Temple of Heaven, a Chinese mythology-based actioner that’s hatched from an idea by former Disney executive Jason Reed. Chad St. John (Albert Hughes‘ pending Motor City) has been commissioned to develop some sort of outline, which he’ll probably then transform into a feature-length screenplay.

If Chinese mythology is the launch point, we can almost assuredly look forward to — and I hope the list isn’t limited to just this — dragons, scary tombs, massive armies, mountainside villages, and plenty of ancient scrolls. So long as that’s all combined into a cohesive, coherent piece, it could prove to be a rollicking good time.

Are you more optimistic about one of these projects than the other?