Hollywood's Growing Obsession With Philip K. Dick

bowman9991 writes "Even after Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, Impostor, and Next, it appears Hollywood's lust for movies based on Philip K. Dick material continues. The Adjustment Bureau, starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, and Terence Stamp, is the latest, and features some classic Dick themes, including the fragile nature of reality and a fight against a world controlled and manipulated by powerful unseen entities. When Congressman David Norris meets the love of his life after a political defeat, he must peel back the layers of reality to discover why a mysterious group is so desperate to make sure they never meet again. He is up against the agents of fate itself — the men of The Adjustment Bureau. The Adjustment Bureau adaptation follows news that Terry Gilliam will adapt Dick's novel The World Jones Made, that Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said and Ubik are being adapted, and that a remake of Total Recall is being developed by the ironically named Original Films Studio."

Comments

Looking forward to The World Jones Made

[Prien715]

Terry Gilliam is one of the most fantastic individuals in the history of film.

If you're a geek, you know him as a founding member of Monty Python (Patsy in The Holy Grail or Cardinal "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" Fang). If you're into film, he's done some fantastic dystopian sci-fi films (Brazil, 12 Monkeys). Talk about breadth of talent.

If anyone has what it takes to do Dick well, it's Gilliam (another random piece of trivia: Gilliam was originally chosen by the author to adapt/direct the Harry Potter books. The studios didn't like Rowling's idea and it never happened.)

Re:I don't Understand

[TheLink]

Short stories are OK for movies actually. 2+ hours is actually a short time to squeeze an entire book in.

With many movies you could have a better ending or explanation for things, but it's just not going to fit in 2-3 hours.

Screamers

[m0nstr42]

Also missed Screamers, based loosely on the short story "Second Variety".

Re:A Few More and Some Musings

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, Dick is dead and can't object, and the Trust is monetising his heritage while they still can because the clock is ticking..

But that clock will never run out. You can bet mickey mouse will ensure leeches like the PKD Trust get to make money off the author's back forever. They'll just complain here and there about minor things, and that'll be what they claim is their creativite input. Dick died in 1982, that's almost a third of a century ago, most of his works are from the 60s and 70s. He obviously isn't going to be creating more works, why the need to keep his works locked up with copyright? Copyright is clearly a tool for corporations.

Total Recall... or We Can Remember It For You

[Geoffrey.landis]

"a remake of Total Recall is being developed by the ironically named Original Films Studio."

Wow, mixed feelings at the totally missed opportunity there.

First, Philip K. Dick never wrote a piece called "Total Recall." A few of the major themes from his short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" were grabbed and incorporated into a completely different plot to make the movie "Total Recall," but for the most part, "Total Recall" isn't Phil Dick, and "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" was not made into a movie.

So it seems like there is an opportunity here, to make a movie from the story Dick actually wrote.

Instead, though, for no detectable reason they seen to want to remake "Total Recall." I can't see the slightest reason to do this. It was already a fine film-- for what it was, which is an action-effects extravaganza that incorporated some themes from Dick's work into a Hollywood-plotted film-- and I doubt that that film can be remade better.

Re:Wrong.

[bluefoxlucid]

Doom's original story was that a research lab on a Martian moon had been experimenting with teleportation technology garnered from tablets from an ancient race, explaining the mathematical basis for teleportation, as well as the dangers, and a brief of the full events of a war. That technology apparently intermediates through Hell. A rogue scientist takes an artifact (used to defeat the creatures of Hell before) into a gate that goes INTO Hell, and then the armies of Hell invade the base.

In the original progression, the armies of Hell wanted a distress signal sent to Earth to get ships for transit to Earth. The lone marine left alive after the initial invasion encountered all kinds of shit; as well as getting orders from a corrupted CO and having to recover the weapon used to such effect in the destruction of Hell's armies. There was also a fully aware counselor attempting to shut down communications or warn Earth about the invasion plans. A lot of weird shit went on, since it dealt with the supernatural aspects of ... well, Judeo-Christian Hell.

The director for the movie decided that was all a bunch of bullshit, and instead they'd just find skeletons with a super-gene from genetic alteration. They'd mix these into a retro-virus and inject the virus into random people to see what happens, thinking it'd make super-humans immune to all disease and with a rapid healing factor. Instead, it makes evil mutant zombies that go around biting other people on the neck to create more evil mutant zombies.

So, one of these was deeply thought out, with its own unique take on complex physics and advanced technology, and with dark overtones rising from an ethically corrupt research firm and from supernatural interests. The other... was boiler plate zombie-plague horror, a la Resident Evil. Which do you prefer?