Oh No (Asimov Fans...)

[Chief Rum]

How did I miss that the movie rights to The FOundation Trilogy were sold?

And how did I miss that the purchaser of said rights is none other than story mangler and crappy blockbuster "extraordinaire" Roland Emmerich (10,000 BC, The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, etc.)?

I fear for the well-being of one of my more cherished book series. You might as well have told me that Del Toro had to suddenly drop the Hobbit, and that Michael Bay was being brought in to replace him.

[Sgran]

I have to say I'm very curious about how they're going to approach it. It's been 20 years since I read it, but still I don't remember much action. In fact, I don't remember much about it at all besides the Mule and his curious powers.

[DaddyTorgo]

gah

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by Sgran

I have to say I'm very curious about how they're going to approach it. It's been 20 years since I read it, but still I don't remember much action. In fact, I don't remember much about it at all besides the Mule and his curious powers.

Well, obviously, we'll have to punch up the script a little bit. The whole multi-generational approach doesn't lend itself to star power, so we'll have to condense the whole thing to maybe five years start to finish. With that out of the way, we can lose the holograms of Hari Seldon and just move him to the forefront as a main character. Like he's the leader of the Foundation. We can give him a hot stripper love interest and a wisecracking Jewish buddy. Bad news is, we'll have to ditch the library concept. Not visceral enough. make the Foundation's mission to guard a weapon - the Psychohistory Ray. That way we can get all Matrixy and shit when the Mule's war fleets come to take the ray. Speaking of the Mule, psychic powers aren't very visual. Can we just get the Rock to play him as a power-mad warlord who directs his armies from the bridge of a war cruiser? We can probably talk hm into it if we give him a terminally ill child. In fact, her plight can be the whole reason he's after this Ray thing. He's an anti-hero, really. That sets up real sympathy when he and Will Smith as Seldon have that pitched gun battle on the factory floor in the climax. Good news is, if we can make a veiled reference to Trantor's neglect of the fringe worlds parallelling the planet's indifference to the suffering in Darfur, Don Cheadle will drop his salary demands to twice scale.

[flere-imsaho]

I've been trying to avoid thinking about it, pretty much for the reasons summed up in Shkspr's post.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Shkspr

Well, obviously, we'll have to punch up the script a little bit. The whole multi-generational approach doesn't lend itself to star power, so we'll have to condense the whole thing to maybe five years start to finish. With that out of the way, we can lose the holograms of Hari Seldon and just move him to the forefront as a main character. Like he's the leader of the Foundation. We can give him a hot stripper love interest and a wisecracking Jewish buddy. Bad news is, we'll have to ditch the library concept. Not visceral enough. make the Foundation's mission to guard a weapon - the Psychohistory Ray. That way we can get all Matrixy and shit when the Mule's war fleets come to take the ray. Speaking of the Mule, psychic powers aren't very visual. Can we just get the Rock to play him as a power-mad warlord who directs his armies from the bridge of a war cruiser? We can probably talk hm into it if we give him a terminally ill child. In fact, her plight can be the whole reason he's after this Ray thing. He's an anti-hero, really. That sets up real sympathy when he and Will Smith as Seldon have that pitched gun battle on the factory floor in the climax. Good news is, if we can make a veiled reference to Trantor's neglect of the fringe worlds parallelling the planet's indifference to the suffering in Darfur, Don Cheadle will drop his salary demands to twice scale.

OMG...I'm glad I'm alone in the office cuz I'm rolling on the fucking floor belly-laughing

[Bad-example]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I fear for the well-being of one of my more cherished book series. You might as well have told me that Del Toro had to suddenly drop the Hobbit, and that Michael Bay was being brought in to replace him.

I wonder if a project like this wouldn't best be attempted in serial form on Sci Fi or HBO. I recently read this series for the first time after it had been sitting on my shelf for no less than 25 years. Hard to imagine this as a 2-3 hour movie.

In other news, dropping the Hobbit is my new, favorite euphemism.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by Bad-example

I wonder if a project like this wouldn't best be attempted in serial form on Sci Fi or HBO. I recently read this series for the first time after it had been sitting on my shelf for no less than 25 years. Hard to imagine this as a 2-3 hour movie.

In other news, dropping the Hobbit is my new, favorite euphemism.

That's hilarious. I'll try that out today.

I agree, it would work better as an HBO Series.

That said, rights get bought all the time, but chances are nothing will come of it. Not until there's a big sci-fi blockbuster. I think the studios will be pushing comics and fantasy for a while longer.

[flere-imsaho]

+1 to an HBO series. It was serialized in print form originally, anyway.

[ISiddiqui]

I don't think it would work as an HBO series either. People thought the "Watchmen" was unfilmable? "Foundation" is much harder.