emohawk
March 30th, 2004, 05:50 PM
I saw this on SciFi Wire (http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/) and thought it may be of interest to some people.
Keanu Reeves will star in A Scanner Darkly, based on a Philip K. Dick novel, for Warner Independent Pictures, Variety reported. Richard Linklater (School of Rock) is in talks to direct, the trade paper reported. George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's Section 8 will produce.
A Scanner Darkly will employ the same technology Linklater used in Waking Life: It will be shot live-action, then animated, the trade paper reported.
The story takes place in the future, where undercover agents change their faces along with their identities. Reeves plays one such officer, and his liberal ingestion of the drug Substance D causes him to develop a split personality, the trade paper reported.
A Scanner Darkly has been kicking around hollywood for years with great names such as Terry Gilliam and Charlie Kauffman attached and it looks like it's finally getting made, but not with any input from these potentially great creative artists.
Firstly: Let me say do we really need another PKD movie? As much as I'd like to see a good movie of this novel, the chances are pretty slim that it's going to be any good. If I'm not mistaken the current tally of movies from PKD stories stands at 7. Come on people, it's not like he's the only SF writer out there! I'm not sure I can think of another SF writer that's had more than 2 movies made from his stories (remakes don't count), Yet we've had 3 PKD movies in the last 2 or so years alone.
Secondly: Keanu Reeves??? I mean what are they thinking? "It involves drugs so we'd better get a guy who can go 'whoa!' really well". I'm sorry but ol' Keanu just doesn't have the acting ability to project the sense of schizophrenia and dislocation felt by the main character.
Thirdly: George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's Section 8 will produce. Soderbergh has already said he hates SF and they've proven with Solaris what they can do when they get their hands on a SF movie with the intent of taking the SF out. What's with the current trend of trying to make SF movies with as many of the SF elements taken out as possible? The audiences that want to see this sort of thing aren't complete retards (an optimistic hope, I know) so why try and dumb it down?
Finally: The bit about it being shot live action then animated. I haven't seen Waking Life yet, aside from the trailer, but this could a cool way of doing it. It would have to be done really well to pull it off successfully though. I would have thought a mixture of the live action and animated would be more effective, but we'll have to wait and see I guess.
Any comments/disagreements welcome.
Keanu Reeves will star in A Scanner Darkly, based on a Philip K. Dick novel, for Warner Independent Pictures, Variety reported. Richard Linklater (School of Rock) is in talks to direct, the trade paper reported. George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's Section 8 will produce.
A Scanner Darkly will employ the same technology Linklater used in Waking Life: It will be shot live-action, then animated, the trade paper reported.
The story takes place in the future, where undercover agents change their faces along with their identities. Reeves plays one such officer, and his liberal ingestion of the drug Substance D causes him to develop a split personality, the trade paper reported.
A Scanner Darkly has been kicking around hollywood for years with great names such as Terry Gilliam and Charlie Kauffman attached and it looks like it's finally getting made, but not with any input from these potentially great creative artists.
Firstly: Let me say do we really need another PKD movie? As much as I'd like to see a good movie of this novel, the chances are pretty slim that it's going to be any good. If I'm not mistaken the current tally of movies from PKD stories stands at 7. Come on people, it's not like he's the only SF writer out there! I'm not sure I can think of another SF writer that's had more than 2 movies made from his stories (remakes don't count), Yet we've had 3 PKD movies in the last 2 or so years alone.
Secondly: Keanu Reeves??? I mean what are they thinking? "It involves drugs so we'd better get a guy who can go 'whoa!' really well". I'm sorry but ol' Keanu just doesn't have the acting ability to project the sense of schizophrenia and dislocation felt by the main character.
Thirdly: George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's Section 8 will produce. Soderbergh has already said he hates SF and they've proven with Solaris what they can do when they get their hands on a SF movie with the intent of taking the SF out. What's with the current trend of trying to make SF movies with as many of the SF elements taken out as possible? The audiences that want to see this sort of thing aren't complete retards (an optimistic hope, I know) so why try and dumb it down?
Finally: The bit about it being shot live action then animated. I haven't seen Waking Life yet, aside from the trailer, but this could a cool way of doing it. It would have to be done really well to pull it off successfully though. I would have thought a mixture of the live action and animated would be more effective, but we'll have to wait and see I guess.
Any comments/disagreements welcome.