Upcoming Film Based On Arthur C. Clarke Story

SoyChemist writes "The Wired Science blog has production stills and a story about a side project that several Industrial Light and Magic employees have been working on. They are producing the short story Maelstrom II as an independent film. The entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen, so all of the sets and props will be CGI. The lone actor, Chuck Marra, plays a guy that hitches a ride on an electromagnetically launched freight capsule from the moon to earth. When the nuclear reactor that powers the catapult fails, he is thrown into space, but not far enough to escape lunar gravity — leading to an Apollo 13 style rescue mission. The original story was written by Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey."

Comments

Great Quote for His Interview

[eldavojohn]

He hopes to visit the great author at his home in Sri Lanka, unveil the completed film, and interview him about the future of humanity in space. I am reminded of a great quote I once heard about from him that would be quite applicable to the above interview:

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. - Arthur C. Clarke I don't know why but my favorite Arthur C. Clarke novel would have to be Childhood's End. In my opinion, there's something more poetic about the style he used for that than there is for any of his other work. Of course, I find myself sliding into more and more bizarre novels these days ... possibly the reason why I haven't seen this adapted into a movie is it's not fit for public consumption (or something that can doom a film in the states, Christian acceptance).

I love independent films and I've got high hopes for this--if anyone could do up an amazing indie film, it'd be ILM. More importantly, I hope this opens up the door a little more for indie films to debut in regular theatres but unfortunately, I'd have to travel pretty far to find a theatre playing something like this and I live in D.C.!

That said, he is a great author though from what I've read about him as a man, he is rumoured to be a bit pompous--but you know, he is credited with being the first to conceive a geostationary communications satellite so maybe he deserves to have a movie made for him and his ego stroked a little? :-)

Re:Great Quote for His Interview

[ashitaka]

I don't know why but my favorite Arthur C. Clarke novel would have to be Childhood's End.

Childhood's End would be good but unfortunately the "huge ships settle over all major cities on earth" imagery has been stolen by Independence Day. And yes, a highly-evolved race saying "religion is a common primitive response in dual-parent species" would not go down too well in modern America. (Maybe that wasn't in Childhood's End)

A more timely adaptation might be The Fountains of Paradise. Space Elevators, yes.

Who?

[glwtta]

The original story was written by Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Oh, that Arthur C. Clarke.

Re:Who?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

The original story was written by Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Oh, that Arthur C. Clarke.

Remember, any sufficiently advanced sarcasm is indistinguishable from offtopic.

Rendezvous with Rama

[nacturation]

I'm still waiting for Rendezvous with Rama to come out. They used to have some info up at the domain name, which is registered by Revelations Entertainment and was supposed to be sponsored by Intel. If the IMDB page is accurate, this might be coming out in a few years... but it's been simmering for about a decade so who knows how accurate that is.

Re:Rendezvous with Rama

[raddan]

If someone actually does do Rendezvous with Rama, they'd better do it right. The thing about that book-- and the thing that has always made me love Clarke's writing-- is that it captures the wonder and fear in an almost palpable way. But the fear part is hard for movie people to get right. It's the fear of the unknown. Not the fear of some big, drooling monster like Hollywood loves to put in the films. Rendezvous with Rama captured the weirdness of an alien species, and to my knowledge, Arthur C. Clarke is the only writer, next to Stanislaw Lem, who toys with the idea that actually communicating with aliens may not be possible.

Kubrick has made one of the only true sci-fi films in my mind-- 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rama would have to do something similar. Definitely a hard sell, but those kinds of films have staying power.

lol

[Dunbal]

The entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen

      As if I really care which OS they used...

      oh, wait...

Re:lol

[Dunbal]

I'm used to it. It's the puppies. I get a lot less mod points since I got the sig about the puppies. I guess I'll have to bump it up to eight.

Re:Isn't this a lose-lose

[Rob T Firefly]

Sounds more like a win-win to me. If it's not a commercial success, these guys will still have a completed project to add to their demo reels and resumes, which didn't cost anything financially. If it is a commercial success, they'll have made a ton of money for ILM. ILM is known for being among the coolest places to work in the FX industry, and it will probably get them some nice bonuses and brownie points, as well as the elusive prize of a successful film for their resumes and demo reels.