Cool film alert

Director Zack Snyder is a hot commodity after the success of 300 earlier this year, and so Warner Brothers has moved to lock him up for the foreseeable future. Snyder is currently working on a movie adaptation of the classic comic Watchmen for them, but now he’s also inked a deal to direct a Ray Bradbury adaptation for the WB.

HR says the film will be based on a collection of unrelated short stories by Bradbury called The Illustrated Man. The stories are linked together by a storyteller whose tattoos come to life in order to tell each tale. In the process the stories are supposed to explore human nature.

Sounds like a nice idea for a Jim Henson special, but it’s hard to imagine how Snyder will turn that into an actual film. Or, will we get a bunch of little movies from him crammed in under the Illustrated Man heading? The stories involved include Mars being colonized by black people who want to institute segregation against incoming white settlers in The Other Foot; simple-minded Mexican villagers are unable to grasp the concept of nuclear war in The Highway; parents locked in an artificial nursery which simulates Africa in The Veldt; a man replaces himself with a robot to escape his unhappy marriage only to discover his wife has already done the same in Marionettes, Inc.; and a priest travels to Mars to convert Martians only to decide that since they lack corporeal form they don’t need redemption. The book contains 18 short stories in all and Snyder will have his pick.

Some of Illustrated’s stories sound potentially controversial, and though the book was written in the fifties by Bradbury, surprisingly relevant. But will audiences show up to see a random collection of movie shorts? If they’re directed by Zack Snyder and Warners plasters “from the director who brought you 300” all over the posters, maybe they will.