Chris Orr at The Plank reports that Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series is going to be given the film treatment. Orr is skeptical, and so am I. As far as space opera goes the Foundation universe was a cerebral and sedate treatment; they’ll have to rewrite a lot of it to get some action to spice up the story. David Brin’s Uplift based novels read much more like the outlines of scripts; but after The Postman they probably won’t want to risk that. Even if there’s a lot going on space opera doesn’t always translate well. Remember David Lynch’s take on Dune? Because of the success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy I suppose the film industry will go on this turn-novel-series-into-film-series kick for a while. I think after the disappointment of The Golden Compass one has to admit that Jackson ended up making good films, and you can’t just assume that the “based on” formula is going to make an endeavor a success.
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