A movie version of Philip K. Dick’s Vulcan’s Hammer may eventually make its way to a theater near you. According to The Hollywood Reporter, New Republic Pictures and director Francis Lawrence (Hunger Games, I am Legend) will be leading the team adapting Dick’s 1960 sci-fi novel.
This, of course, is not the first time one of Dick’s works has been adapted into a movie. Arguably the most well-known adaptation is 1982’s Blade Runner, which is loosely (very loosely) based on Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Other previous adaptations of Dick’s work include the movies Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly. The TV series The Man in the High Castle, is also originally based on Dick’s novel of the same name.
Vulcan’s Hammer is based in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has placed an AI system, Vulcan 3, in control, giving the AI the power to set policies that people on Earth must follow. One day, however, something attacks Vulcan 3 and someone else is murdered. A man named William Barris is tasked to figure out who or what’s behind it all, and we follow his journey as he seeks to unearth the truth.
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Vulcan’s Hammer
Here’s a blurb of the 165-page book:
After the twentieth century’s devastating series of wars, the world’s governments banded together into one globe-spanning entity, committed to peace at all costs. Ensuring that peace is the Vulcan supercomputer, responsible for all major decisions. But some people don’t like being taken out of the equation. And others resent the idea that the Vulcan is taking the place of God. As the world grows ever closer to all-out war, one functionary frantically tries to prevent it. But the Vulcan computer has its own plans, plans that might not include humanity at all.
Given the credits of Lawrence and the rest of the production team (New Republic Pictures is just wrapping up working on Michael Bay’s Ambulance), my guess is this adaptation will be big on the explosions and massive in scope. It’s still early days, however, so we’ll likely have to wait awhile to see it on screen.
Philip K. Dick’s works are in many ways nigh impossible (with the exception of man in the high castle) to translate into anything consumable for the masses. As such i am afraid we will get warped version of the text (as we just saw with the foundation.) Seriously hope Lawrence can prove me wrong.
Philip K. Dick’s work has inspired a dozen films and three television series. I don’t there’s another SF author of his generation or since who can match this record. Without making any judgments of Dick’s works, the adaptations thereof, or the works of other writers, why is he so far ahead of the pack?
@2 – I’m guessing it’s because of short stories that have a largely cinematic feel?
Isaac Asimov wrote dozens of short stories that were very intellectual and talky. This isn’t bad, and a proper writer should be able to do something with it. The I, Robot movie was enjoyable for me, and incorporated many nods to the classic stories, but I also understand why purists were offended.
But Dick always seems to have great germs of ideas that people want to play with, and those nuggets can be extrapolated numerous ways, I suppose.
[The Foundation stories should have been a slam dunk, but from what I hear so far someone decided it couldn’t be sci-fi with JUST an intergalactic empire AND mathematical prophesying AND a thoughtful look at history through a backward-seeing lens. Nope, had to make Cleon a series of different-age clones and whatnot.]
@@@@@1. Bob
I disagree I think A Scanner Darkly wonderfully used rotoscoping to capture paranoid world of ASD.
It’s easy to see why a studio would take an interest in this particular work, at a time when the impact of computers and those that use them become ever more overpowering an influence on Society – also when globalisation continues to be rather a sore subject.
One wonders how they’ll update the story to reflect changes in technology & society?