In 1997, Andrew Niccol made his directorial debut with a beautiful, stylish movie full of beautiful, stylish people that failed to make much of a mark at the box office. But in the modern world, a high-concept film that didn’t do that well can transform into something else entirely: intellectual property waiting to be mined.
Which is to say, Niccol’s Gattaca might become a series.
Gattaca takes place in a future in which parents use technology to make sure their children will be genetically superior, and only genetically perfect people get to function in the higher echelons of society. Ethan Hawke plays an in-valid—a person born without genetic tampering, ergo genetically inferior—who wants to go to space, but has to steal the identity of a perfect human (Jude Law) to do so. Uma Thurman plays his love interest.
What I remember about Gattaca is its clean-line future and that detectives spend a lot of time picking up bits of DNA evidence, which is sort of stressful if you’re a person who sheds everywhere.
Homeland creators Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon created this new show alongside Craig Borten, the co-writer of Dallas Buyers Club. It’s kind of a weird lineup for a deeply sci-fi property, but it makes sense for prestige TV. No plot details have been announced, and Variety notes, “Sources stress that deals for the project are not yet closed.”
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