By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers
Cloverfield director Matt Reeves has been selected by Warner Bros. Pictures to direct a new movie based on the classic TV series, The Twilight Zone, which originally ran on CBS from 1959 to 1964 and later underwent two revivals (1985–1989 and 2002–2003).
According to Deadline, a script has been penned by Jason Rothenberg, and life-long Twilight Zone fan Leonardo DiCaprio is onboard as a producer. This won’t be the first time The Twilight Zone has received the silver screen treatment: in 1983 Twilight Zone: The Movie (directed in part by Steven Spielberg) flopped at the box-office due to bad publicity stemming from a helicopter crash during filming that killed three of the movie’s actors. Even without the blight of this tragedy, the episodic structure of the movie -- as well as the jarring styles and sensibilities of its multiple directors -- made it decidedly hit-and-miss.
The new Twilight Zone is being described as a "big science fiction action movie with a single freestanding story." No further details have yet been released by Warner Bros., however, online speculation suggests that the movie may be based on the classic TZ episode ‘To Serve Man’, in which a race of seemingly benevolent nine-foot-tall aliens lands on Earth and proceeds to solve humanity’s most pressing problems, including hunger, energy, and the threat of nuclear war. Soon, many Earthlings are volunteering to visit their alien saviours’ home planet where --oops-- they learn that they are ingredients in an alien cookbook titled... To Serve Man!
The new Twilight Zone is being described as a "big science fiction action movie with a single freestanding story." No further details have yet been released by Warner Bros., however, online speculation suggests that the movie may be based on the classic TZ episode ‘To Serve Man’, in which a race of seemingly benevolent nine-foot-tall aliens lands on Earth and proceeds to solve humanity’s most pressing problems, including hunger, energy, and the threat of nuclear war. Soon, many Earthlings are volunteering to visit their alien saviours’ home planet where --oops-- they learn that they are ingredients in an alien cookbook titled... To Serve Man!
Warner Bros. aims to start shooting in summer 2012, which means the movie won’t hit cinemas until sometime in 2013. Whether or not the new Twilight Zone movie will actually be based on 'To Serve Man' remains to be seen, but an alien-themed story of some kind seems likely given the current popularity of the UFO movie at the Hollywood box-office.
Incidentally -- and perhaps more intriguingly -- Deadline also notes that director Matt Reeves has “a deal at Universal to write and direct a film based on the Ray Nelson short story 8 O’Clock in the Morning, about a man who awakens with the realization that aliens are all over the place and control society.” 8 O’Clock in the Morning, of course, was the story on which John Carpenter’s brilliant 1988 movie They Live was based. Universal has just released a prequel to Carpenter’s 1982 classic The Thing to poor reviews and disappointing box-office returns. Silly Universal -- leave the Carpenter classics alone!
No comments:
Post a Comment