Robots battling in the Victorian Age produced by the guy who made space cool again? Alright, I’ll bite.
J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, Mission Impossible III) and his Bad Robot production banner, who have a first look deal with Paramount, have the rights to Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel, a graphic novel-picture book by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett, which tells of:
“the world’s first robot, who, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fought alongside Terry Roosevelt and Lawrence of Arabia, journeyed to the South Pole and was involved in the silent movie business before disappearing on the battlefields of World War I.” [THR]
Graphic novel-to-film adaptations, while far more successful than video game adaptations, have always been hit or miss. There’s some great (Road to Perdition, A History of Violence), some solid (Sin City, Kick-Ass) and several missteps (Watchmen, The Spirit, Surrogates, League of Extraordinary Gentleman) that define the sub-genre. Graphic novels (and comic books, because, lets be honest, they are the same thing) work in another medium that relishes in the visual imagination while (in many ways) embracing narrative cliches. In today’s easy-to-swallow commercial film era, the graphic novels appears simple to transfer, but it has become clear that that is not the case. One cannot simply extract the page and slap it on to the screen (Watchmen). Similarly, one cannot extract plot and ignore color palette (Surrogates). Each piece of art must be it’s own. Abrams knows both how to be original (Lost, Felicity) and how to pick up where others left off (Star Trek). Something like Boilerplate should be right up his alley.
Are you excited for Boilerplate? What do you think of Abrams as a director? Producer?