Former New Line Folk Lay the Foundation for Foundation the Movie
Posted at 10:12 AM Jul 30, 2008
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is absolutely one of the finest sci-fi novel series of all time, and certainly one of my personal favorites). The story—about a professor who develops the science of psychohistory—basically, being about to predict mankind's actions, at least in large groups—to predict the future, sees the galactic empire is going to collapse, and creates an institute to help get humanity back on its feet. The saga covers several centuries, several sets of characters, and is the exact opposite of a self-contained story. This is pretty why people have been talking about making a Foundation movie for decades, but not doing it.
Now the Hollywood Reporter says that Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne —who ran New Line Cinema until Warner Bro.s ate it a few months ago—are going to make a Foundation movie, with hopes that if it's successful, they can make another LotR-style trilogy.
As much as I would love to see a Foundation movie, I'm quite aware I'm one of only a few hundred who will be excited to see it as is. See, it's about a man who saves the galaxy with science. And history. It makes for a great read, but it's not the sort of thing that translates well to the big screen. So the only real option Hollywood has is to do something crazy to the basic story, much like they did with I, Robot (perhaps Hari Seldon can save the galaxy with guns that shoot history, or something) which will make me have a huge nerd hissyfit. I don't think there's any winning here, people.
Comments
What a great series. I dread seeing Hollywood's take on it, they don't have the best track record with Asimov.
On another note, I imagine Battlestar Galactica was heavily influenced by Foundation and Earth. Quite a few parallels there.
Posted 07/30/2008 at 07:35:49 AMI enjoyed the first three, but unless they make the Mule an actual mule (which is how I pictured him when I read the books -- I read them kind of young) it may not be the most exciting movie. And I remember by Foundation and Empire they just talked about sex a whole lot. They didn't have it, they just discussed theories. That's when I started to wonder if Asimov was a little cuckoo.
Posted 07/30/2008 at 08:36:46 AMPrelude to Foundation rocked my world growing up... Seeing the Foundation series brought to screen will be upsetting. It's not going to get more people to read them, and they'll have to "dumb it down" to get people to go see it. blargh!
Posted 07/30/2008 at 06:31:14 PMYeah, we'll be lucky if it's actually based on Foundation, and isn't just some script that they had lying around that they slapped the names of characters from the book onto.
Posted 07/31/2008 at 12:00:04 PMYeah, we'll be lucky if it's actually based on Foundation, and isn't just some script that they had lying around that they slapped the names of characters from the book onto.
Posted 07/31/2008 at 12:02:08 PMI always wondered from the first time i read this if a film of it was possible? Its a massive spanning story, with so many twists and padded allusions from other books that it sounds difficult. Plus theres not much gone into character dramatisation.
I was thinking about how this would be as a sort of mystery-adventure thriller. Then we get their Han Solo esque- action hero, in "the merchant kings" section.
Posted 08/12/2008 at 02:20:09 AM