Just last night we reported Children of Men director Alfonso Cuarón’s planned sci-fi film, Gravity, may be in jeopardy due to WB not getting Angelina Jolie as lead. Now, ScriptShadow has the first review of an earlier draft of the script and they have uncovered many story details. You can head over to their site for the full scoop, but check out my short summary below.
The main character, Ryan is up in space. The Russians blew up one of the many satellites there. It causes a chain reaction of flying debris, exploding the shuttle they are on. Now, for the rest of the film she is in her life-suit and must jump from location to location to get air, in order to reach the mother boat haven of the International Space Station.
ScriptShadow had a problem with the reptitive nature of the film, but this is where things get interesting. We reported that the film is planned to have a 20 minute single opening shot, as we know how Cuarón loves those. They hypothesize that the entire film may take place in a single shot, of course connected together by CG (like Children of Men):
The reason some of this script drags and is repetitive is because Cuaron doesn’t have the luxury of cutting away. I mean just think about how difficult it is writing a screenplay when we DO get to cut out all of the boring parts. Here, he doesn’t get to cut out any, which forces him (and the rest of the writers) to come up with ways to speed through the more mundane aspects of the story. He tries to limit them as much as he can, but they inevitably creep in there.
It would indeed by amazing to see something like this done right. I hope WB can get it together and start production. It’s been too long since the last Cuarón film. There was plans to start production in London this year, but it is now up in the air.
Do you think Cuarón could pull off an entire film in a single shot?