If Orson Welles had gotten his way, there may never have been a Citizen Kane. Upon being lured to Hollywood by RKO with an offer of unheard of creative freedom for a first-time filmmaker (following Welles’ news-making stints on stage and radio), the boy wonder set out to make his first film — an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Never content being normal, Welles wanted to shoot on location in the jungle and to tell the story using POV camerawork for the central character of Charles Marlow, making it the Cloverfield of African-set symbolism about the dark duality of man’s nature. But RKO was all, “No dice; too expensive.” So eventually we got Citizen Kane. Then, of course, we all know about the next big screen adaptation of Conrad’s novel, Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Coppola had his own kooky ideas for the film, such as moving the events from the Congo to Vietnam and ignoring Roger Corman’s advice not to shoot in Southeast Asia during the rainy season. Well, now it is time for another big screen adaptation of Conrad’s novel, with its own lil’ twist…
Outer space.
That’s right. Like Pinhead, Jason, the Leprechaun and the Critters before him, Kurtz is going into space. The above pic is some concept art (courtesy of ComingSoon) from Into Darkness; which IMDb Pro currently lists as the the film’s title. The script was written by Tony Giglio, Branden R. Morgan, and Ted Field, and the project currently has Peter Cornwell (The Haunting in Connecticut; ugh) attached to direct. Which surely fills you all with confidence.
The film describes itself as thus:
APOCALYPSE 2388. Earth is on the brink of extinction. Legendary explorer KURTZ has been sent on a desperate last bid mission to scout an unknown planet on the far side of the universe. A planet that may sustain human life. But communication with Kurtz mysteriously ceases and rookie flight officer MARLOW is assigned the perilous task of completing the objective. Tracking Kurtz into the unknown he reaches it. A new earth. And a race of beings at the dawn of time. But Kurtz has his own plans for the new world and man’s last hope for survival. And to achieve it he will take man to the only place that will protect paradise. Into darkness.
I see.
Well, I love stupid shit like this. So sure, if someone wants to waste money making this, I’ll waste my Netflix viewing time watching it after it tanks at the box offices. Count me in. Ditto for the Moby Dick in space film that I know was produced earlier this year (and will likely go straight to SyFy). Then I will wait patiently for the outer space adaptations of The Old Man and the Sea and The Great Gatsby.
16 comments
You forgot, Lord of the Flies – on an asteriod
Mansfield Park on a space station.
It sucks since I would see the shit out of a straight-ahead adaptation of Heart of Darkness, where all its themes and colonial implications are given their proper context. It’s nice that it can be transposed to different time periods, like Shakespeare, but I’m of the opinion that those ideas hold the most water in the setting where they were originally articulated. But that’s just me.
I wholeheartedly agree. Unless the new time period is outer space! Then the silliness of the idea wins me over. But, being serious, I’d much rather a proper period adaptation than someone doing a HEART OF DARKNESS in Afghanistan. Same reasoning I’m excited for the TINKER, TAILOR film; I’m happy they didn’t make it contemporary.
The sci-fi, the sci-fi, the sci-fi…..
At least this will get me primed for that LORD JIM of MARS film coming in 2031.
I think they should dump the feature film idea and embrace the in-space gimmick for an anthology series, adapting short literary works. Hemingway’s “A Clean and Well-Lighted Landing Module”, maybe Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras XJ-303″…
“Well, I love stupid shit like this.”
Don’t understand why you’d call it stupid. It’s no mre stupidthan Terminator and less so than Avatar.
I agree with garageman. Because it’s based on a literary classic it’s “stupid shit”. Had it been an original synopsis with no connections to a hefty tome, you’d be creaming your nerd pants over this. In fact it comes across as a far less dumb, thinking man’s Avatar. The intellectual flip-side of Avatar, if you will.
“you’d be creaming your nerd pants over this.”
On what are you basing this assumption about me? I don’t think I have a rep as a big sci-fi nerd. I thought AVATAR sounded stupid when I first heard its concept too. Not sure why that film is being used as an example here. I didn’t even like that movie very much once I saw it.
It seems odd to me that I need to explain what I think is “stupid” about this project. Give me some credit — It has nothing to do with the story itself (which seems fairly conventional; at least for sci-fi literature), and everything to do with the fact that someone read HEART OF DARKNESS and thought, “This would work much better in space.”
This keeping in mind that there has never been a proper theatrical adaptation of Conrad’s novel. So there isn’t a need to find a “new take.”
“It has nothing to do with the story itself (which seems fairly conventional; at least for sci-literature)”. For sci-fi literature, yes it is conventional. Agree with you there. For the majority of sci-fi films right now (giant robots, fighting robots, aliens vs cowboys) it actually stands out from the pack a little. I just feel you should give the story a chance on it’s own, not dismiss it entirely just because it’s based on Heart Of Darkness.
Feels like a tip of the iceberg indication of its quality to me. I thought The Haunting in Connecticut was terrible. Granted, Cornwell has yet to fully show what he can and can’t do. But until he does, I see no reason to just assume he is in fact brilliant and Haunting was an early career fuck-up. If Duncan Jones announced this as his next project I’d still think it was a weird choice, but I’d be more optimistic. Though, all this said, I don’t think I was being as harsh to movie as you’re acting. I said nothing of “fuck this movie.” Just said it seemed like a dumb idea — a dumb idea that I fully admitted I wanted to see.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think you were being overly harsh, just a little dismissive that’s all. I’d actually dig Duncan Jones doing something like this, rather than Source Code 2. As for Cornwell, I always think a director is only as good as the material, and Haunting was dire material.
Sounds like an Avatar cash-in more than anything. Add the literary pedigree of the source story and you can play it off as something a bit classier than it really is.
Anyone actually read Conrad’s book? okay, the premise here isn’t exactly from the novel (obviously – space), but the book centers around a company’s best ivory trader who goes missing and a new company man sent to find him. That what seems described here.
Obviously the story will be updated, but why so much hate immediately? Coppola did the exact same thing. He took Conrad’s novel out of africa and lost the ivory stuff, made the company the military and told his own story of the darkness and horrors of war.
It doesn’t get much more dark than space. Conrad’s novel is a classic that can be interpreted many different ways. Why not at least see how the film looks before immediately hating?
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