From latimes, Sources say that John Davis, the Fox-based producer behind such science-fiction hits as "Alien vs. Predator" and "I, Robot," has optioned film rights to the Ray Bradbury classic, in which humans land on Mars after a cataclysmic disaster and interact/clash with the natives in a series of interlinked adventures.
Bradbury's 1950 short-story collection has made it to the screen before, in a 1980 television miniseries that starred Rock Hudson and Bernadette Peters. But 30 years later, there's plenty more that technology (and 3-D?) could bring to the tales.
There's certainly ample narrative material in the book, which chronicle much of the action from humans' point of view, with some philosophical inquiry layered atop the pulp stories. One thing that may need to change, however, is the timing: Bradbury's original book set a chunk of the stories in the distant future -- in 2000 and 2005.
9 comments:
Ugh. Terrible idea. There are no "adventures" in that book.
Don't get me wrong, it's a fine book, but there's very little in there to turn into a good movie, imo. Not the kind they're talking about, anyway.
Done well as a mini series it could work I think. Maybe it's just because I really love the Martian Chronicles.
There was already one mini-series in the 70s and it was terrible.
I remember my parents watching the mini-series, and I remember my 6-year-old mind being a little bit freaked. Not V-freaked, but I couldn't fall asleep thinking about it.
I'll have to revisit and marvel at what I now realize was another ridiculous experience of my childhood innocence being warped by something laughable.
And Hollywood will fuck this up like anything else. Probably Starship-Troopers levels of fuck up. As in, take the original book, rip out every single page between the covers, transfer the title to a complete shitshow of a script with ZERO in common with the source work, and film.
While I can't disagree that anyone expecting to see the book Starship Troopers put up on screen would be disappointed, I would ask why they'd want that in the first place. I picked it up in anticipation of the movie and was roundly disappointed; it's two thin slices of action sandwiching a big stack of fictional political theory. Not useless, but I wanted to read about crazy bugs.
I do think a fair amount of the societal "character" does make it into the movie, too. Even if it's largely "90210 meets huge bugs."
I love Starship Troopers. You just convinced me to watch it for Horrorthon '10.
I think I was such a fan of the book long before the movie, that I couldn't really get my head around their decision to dump just about ALL of the political theory (I'm a sucker for stuff like that) in favor of more screen time for Casper Van F'n Dien.
There was plenty of bug stuff in the book, y'know.
And I guess the movie did have that hot redhead chick getting naked. So I guess it's a wash.
Plenty of bug social theory, you mean.
I liked the book a lot, I was just geeking on the glimpses of those warrior bugs and it wasn't what I expected. They're not even described all that distinctly, I think "a nightmare version of a spider" is it.
Also, apropos of nothing, the bugs had spaceships.
Mmm-hm. Plus the movie just ignored completely the Power Suits. That was half of what was cool about the book.
Bernadette Peters, 'nuff said
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