Deadline reports that 20th Century Fox, is developing a live-action feature film version of adaptation of Issac Asimov’s 1954 novel The Caves of Steel.
Simon Kinberg, (X-MEN writer) is producing via his Genre Films production company, based at Fox. Henry Hobson is attached as director, with John Scott 3 (yep, that’s his moniker) set to write the screenplay.
Hobson is know primarily as a titles designer for films such as SHERLOCK HOLMES and RANGO, while Scott 3 works with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Seems like an odd pairing, but the two are first collaborating on a teenage Zombie film entitled MAGGIE.
Asimov’s The Caves of Steel was first published as a serial in Galaxy Magazine in 1963, and quickly picked up as a novel by Doubleday.
The tale is a murder mystery sent on an over-populated Earth about three thousand years in the future. Here agoraphoic humans live in domed cities and rarely if ever see the outside world.
The rich and powerful Spacers’ (people whose ancestors left Earth for other planets) ambassador has been murdered and police detective Elijah Baley is forced to work with their chosen investigator, the humanoid robot R. Daneel Olivaw.
This is a double-edged insult, as the Spacers are generally too disdainful and suspicious of Earthmen to spend time in their presence, and robots are equally distrusted and restricted on Earth. Bailey and R. Daneel slowly come to bond during the potentially explosive investigation.
The book was a great success, and lead to the sequels The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn . The characters have ties to Asimov’s Robots series and, more loosely to the Foundation series.
THE CAVES OF STEEL was previously adapted for live action on BBC televsion in 1964 starring Peter Cushing as police detective Elijah Baley and John Carson as R. Daneel Olivaw. That version, directed by Peter Sasdy, with a teleplay Terry Nation (DOCTOR WHO, BLAKES 7), is considered lost, with only a few fragments remaining.
Tag: I ROBOT
'Martian Chronicles' Headed for Screen Again?
The L.A. Times says “sources” tell them that John Davis, a 20th Century Fox-based producer who was involved with ALIEN Vs. PREDATOR and the will Smith vehicle I, ROBOT has optioned the rights to Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.
The book is a loosely connected selection of short stories, some that have little to do with the planet, others that are more refelctions on Bradbury’s feelings about a view of Mars that he read about and loved as a child, and knew as an adult writer had no substance in reality. So many of them are delicate fables, morality tales, or slight slices of subdued nightmare.
Trying to adapt them into a cohesive science fiction narrative is somewhat akin to attaching a jet engine to a child’s kite made of newspaper and balsa wood.
Richard Matheson made a game attempt in the TV mini-series THE MARTIAN CRONICLES (1980).
Despite a cast that included Rock Hudson, Roddy McDowall, Darren McGavin, Barry Morse, Bernadette Peters, and Fritz Weaver, the production was generally turgid and disappointing, though with a few moments that captured the magic of some of the stories. Variable production design (from imaginitive to extemely bland), and substandard FX work gave it a slightly cheezey look.
Various stories from The Martian Chronicles that appeared on the very low-budget RAY BRADBURY THEATER worked as well or better, freed of the need to link together.
So, the idea of a major feature film version of a short story collection does not strike me as a very good idea. Could the rights have been obtained to make a film like I, ROBOT (2004)?
That film was based on a screenplay called Hardwired that Fox liked, and had some similarity to Issac Asimov’s robot stories. So, since they had the rights to the I, Robot collection, the Susan Clavin character and Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics were inserted into the story.
The results were an entertaining Sci-Fi action-murder mystery that held little savor for readers of the original stories.
Will the same road be taken? Only time will tell.