Variety reports:
Columbia won an auction late Thursday for screen rights to “Foundation,” Isaac Asimov’s ground breaking science fiction trilogy. The film will be developed as a directing vehicle for Roland Emmerich.
Emmerich and his Centropolis partner Michael Wimer will produce the film. The deal was mid six-figures against low seven figures.
I see nothing but “train wreck” written all over this. Emmerich is a competent filmmaker, churning out big-budget genre spectacles of debatable quality like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. But both of these movies are nothing more than shallow, star-and/or-effects-driven affairs, and The Foundation Trilogy is anything but. The only slightly intellectually engaging movie of Ememrich’s that comes to mind is Stargate, but even then Emmerich struggled to convey the intricacies of that movie’s relatively complex plot.
On a lark, and because it’s been way too long, I pulled my leather-bound, collectors’ Easton Press edition of The Foundation Trilogy off its place of pride on my bookshelf (yes, I’m bragging, I likes me my finely-bound SF book collection). According to Asimov’s own introduction to Foundation, in “The Story Behind the Foundation,” the genesis of this seminal work lies in Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (“I thought of soldiers, of military empires, of the Roman Empire—of a Galactic Empire—aha!”), and as such, as a commentary on the times we live in now (arguably the fall of the American empire), I grant that the overarching themes in the work are topical, and could resonate well with a modern, mainstream audience (remember, long-time fandom: this current spate of SF-themed movies is not meant for you). Additionally, the entire Foundation saga is a piece of advocacy for taking the (very) long view of things, and in this modern world, where everyone is fascinated with instant gratification and making sure the individual is taken care of right now, a little perspective could go a long way.
The beauty of Foundation, to me, is the slow and deliberate unfolding of a macro-narrative over the course of centuries, a true worldbuilding for the ages, where individual story arcs and particular characters—the staple of Hollywood theatre-fodder—are considered a very distant second to the main narrative of (psycho)historical change. I haven’t gone back to Foundation in a few years (this may change now; the first volume is open, on my desk, as I write this. It’s calling me back, like an old friend, and it’s a snowy day, perfect for diving into a tried and true book), but aside from Hari Seldon, the Mule, and maybe Dors Venabili, I can’t say that any one character sticks in my mind as particularly memorable—that’s not what Asimov’s writing was about!
I’m loathe to pronounce anything as “unfilmable.” That kind of blanket assertion seems to me to smack of a kind of close-minded intransigence towards creative exploration that I generally don’t abide (Watchmen haters, I’m looking at you). However, I can’t see how a two-and-a-half hour feature (or a trilogy of them, even), produced by a major Hollywood studio, helmed by an action-movie director, and probably starring a young Hollywood leading man, could ever hope to do justice to Asimov’s classic chronicle of the Galactic Empire's fall, resurgence, and the interregnum in between.
I could, however, see a smaller studio, such as maybe SciFi, taking it upon themselves to invest in making a longer-running episodic series, led by a competent showrunner, which would then set out to adapt the Foundation Saga (and maybe even include the Robot and Empire series, wouldn’t that be something!) in its entirety. This would require quite a commitment from the part of the studio, and—again—a long-term approach that is usually in very short supply among both Hollywood and TV executives, concerned as they are with this season’s ratings and only this season’s ratings.
Or maybe an adaptation’s true home would be on the internet, where smaller-scale, yet longer-running shows aren’t tied to the tyranny of a fixed broadcast schedule and its attendant concern with the here-and-now.
I don’t know. All I know is that a one-shot summer blockbuster helmed by Roland Emmerich based on Foundation does not bode well.
I know I’m in the minority, but I liked Independence Day. It wasn’t deep, but I even after all these years, I see it as containing a series of homages to other SF works. And I also liked Stargate. Of course, I also liked I, Robot, so obviously I’m okay with non-strict adaptations of so-called “classics.”
@sef
Oh, I didn’t say I didn’t like Independence Day. I enjoyed it. But, as you say, it’s not the deepest movie out there. I said it was of debatable quality, and I also include The Day After Tomorrow in there, which really is a lame movie.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch I, Robot, in all honesty. Everything that I saw about the movie went completely against what Asimov intended with his robot stories on a very fundamental level. I probably wouldn’t have minded the movie if it had been called anything else.
I liked Independence Day and even I, Robot. The latter bore little resemblance to the story, but it was fine on its own terms.
I think what will happen with the film is that we’ll see the crucial turning points filmed. Mallow’s story, etc. Those have natural drama but a film focusing on them will not be Foundation. This smacks of a studio wanting to hang something on a well known author’s name and work.
This is starting to feel a little like a geek’s fantasy. I remember when Asimov and the rest were considered For Nerds Only, and now they’re becoming big budget blockbusters.
I sort of liked the I, Robot adaptation, which I felt was a pretty good attempt to piece together a lot of short stories into a two hour film. It had a lot of blatant product placement (Converse All-Stars anyone?) but it still tried to comment on human nature.
Still, no matter what, finally having a movie based on one of the best Sci-Fi series out there is great.
The moment i saw the title of the post i got chills.The first time i took a Foundation volume in my hands i felt like i was holding the Holy Graal :) I had a lot of hyped friends telling me about that book and how immersive it was.And they were correct.I read it in two days time stopping only for sleep or food.Now Independance day was actually a good movie when you have in mind that it was a summer blockbuster and wile i do agree that it was more special effects driven it had some good characters in it.Now about the I,Robot deal…Uther dissapointment.I mean yeah i imagine it was difficult to adapt the stories and such in a movie like fashioned script but knowing where it comes as a source it should have been done better.Emmerich is a good director in his own field,but again as Pablo says in his post Foundation is interesting because of the world building sense of it and how one sees the actions of character affect the future.I dont think that a script that is truthfully true to the volumes of the Foundation can be made, be it even a trilogy piece.Hence the chills i got.I just dont want to see something complete and organic be reduced to a fade Xerox copy of itself…I do hope i am wrong though…But i dont have big hopes for the whole affair…
Worst possible scenario: Emmerich makes a movie which only bears a passing resemblance to the books. You don’t go. Lot’s of young people do. Some number of them will pick up the new printing of “Foundation” (you know the one that says “Now a Major Motion Picture!” on the cover). Some smaller number of inspired readers will read the introduction, and go pick up Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”. Some of them will notice the similarity between the author’s name and a magazine called “Asimov’s Science Fiction”, and pick one up. Regardless of what Emmerich does, not one word of my copy of the book will change. What’s the down side?
Personally, while the Foundation trilogy is one of my all-time favorites, I think that making it into a movie will be quite a challenge.
You see, the novels seem to be mostly talking heads, expounding on broad themes.
And we all know that movie produces want lots of action, heroes dodging laser bolts, and exploding spaceships.
I won’t give up hope yet. I’m going to wait to see who writes the screenplay. I can count without using my thumbs all of the writers who I think could do this and not screw it up. If one of them gets the job, there may be hope.
I frankly don’t see how this will come out well. The source material does not lend itself to the movie format as Hollywood understands it. The best way to be true to the trilogy would be to make a BBC style series. (If you don’t understand what I mean, then I recommend renting Jekyll from Netflix.) Unfortunately, I doubt that anyone at Columbia could make it.
And BTW, Steven Moffat (he wrote Jekyll) is on that short list of writers.
I just want to clarify my previous point.
If you want to understand what I see as the difference between British and American production, then take a look at the series Eleventh Hour. You can rent the original British series on Netflix, but reading about it on Wikipedia should be sufficient to convey the differences between the British and American series.
So… we’re just talking I, Robot disappointment versus Dune‘s spectacularly weirded-out miasma of what.
Not good enough!
I demand that Sting be cast in the role of Hari Seldon so that his holographic visage, each time decorated in a new black-and-white pattern of silks and body paint, haunts the entire length of the however many movies this becomes, probably three but it’s quite hard to say. You could conceivably make five movies out of Foundation alone. And may I say that the possible plot confusion that could arise would give Dune a run for its money.
In this light, will someone please send Emmerich all the drugs that David Lynch was mainlining during Dune.
I can’t imagine that this will be good. Normally, that wouldn’t bother me (heck, I shrugged off the Alex Proyas/Will Smith “I, Robot”) but since Foundation was the book that introduced me to the genre, the 10-year-old within is outraged.
The real question, however, is why there isn’t a Foundation video game. That makes no sense to me.
@AnthonyHa
Same here. Hence, this post.
We’ve already all seen what Hollywood would do if adapting the Foundation books to film
Haha. Yeah, STAR WARS! No wonder those movies were so great.
Just hope they pick someone tall, bronze-haired, high-cheekboned and sublimely handsome to play the part of Daneel Olivaw.
Oh and he’d better not only look intelligent but be intelligent too.
And he’d better not have a paunch as robots don’t get paunches, even when they’re 20,000 years old.
Having seen the brilliant Comic Strip Archive (link on cybernetic nomad’s message) of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy (Sun 18th Jan) I thought why not make a parody send-up film instead, and then nobody need worry that Hollywood will make a mess of it all.