‘AMP’ Sci-Fi Thriller in development by Alex Proyas

December 2nd, 2010
http://www.slashfilm.com/alex-proyas-amp/

 

The question is, will this be the Alex Proyas who brought us THE CROW and DARK CITY or the Alex Proyas who brought us KNOWING and I, ROBOT?

 

Pretty much my concern. The former pairing are distinctively and visually rich modern SF/F pieces brimming with lovely ideas and themes, whilst the latter are, well, trash...

Being the ever-pessimist, I hold out little hope


Hugo - Remember John, never talk to strangers

 

I Robot is a better class of rubbish than Knowing though.

 

It might be more watchable, but I still thought it was rubbish the first (and only) time I saw it.

 

You mean the Alex Proyas of over a decade ago, or the Alex Proyas of last year?

...yeah.

I love Dark City and I like The Crow, but at this point a new Proyas title is more likely to elicit indifference than anything else.

 

^^
Pretty much. But I hold out wildly naive hope that KNOWING was a victim of Nicolas Cage's meddling with the script (actually, I know it was, at least in part) and that I, ROBOT was a victim of being a Will Smith vehicle (also true).

Of course, neither of those things should have prevented those films from being entertaining, but, eh.

 

Dark City was written by Alex Proyas. He was only the director for I, Robot and Knowing. I think that explains the difference in quality between those respective movies. Whoever is writing AMP will have more influence on the quality of the movie.

 

Actually...

LINK.

 

In a world where it was legal for the disabled to become supermen via prosthetics, I'd imagine a hell of a lot of able bodied people would voluntarily have their natural body parts replaced in order to compete with those people.

 

Hmm reminds me of a DS9 episode.

 

Yeah it's not a great film. But Knowing actually made me want to throw things at the screen.

When the audience is letting out an exasperated sigh during the main characters key emotional scene (when he says goodbye to his kids) you have a big problem, by that point I was over the moon that his character would be remaining on earth to die.

 

Here's another link for you: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448011/fullcredits#writers

The notion that the director is the creator who can take bits and pieces of various drafts and create a coherent work of art is tested in Knowing, because in addition to whatever contributions Proyas and Hazeldine threw in, uncredited, the WGA declares the above are also contributors. Proyas didn't write this script, he piddled in it.
And that's why Knowing isn't that good, it's rags and patches jammed together, a scifi movie jammed into a religious fantasy with horror movie moments along the way.

Movies are not patchwork quilts. A very reliable symptom of poor quality writing is multiple authors on a screenplay.

 

You realize that DARK CITY has three credited screenwriters, the exact same number as KNOWING, right? If your proposition is that multiple writers must equal lesser quality, then how do you explain the difference in quality between DARK CITY and KNOWING?

I'm also confused how Proyas' statement that he, "rewrote KNOWING considerably" is equivalent to your claim that he assembled the shooting script like a patchwork quilt out of various drafts by other writers?

That patchwork process, of course, ended up working just fine for Nicholas Meyer when he assembled the shooting script for STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, but that is neither here nor there.

And as an aside, who the WGA gives credit to through the arbitration process isn't that important an indicator of anything. I recall an interview with Akiva Goldsman in The New Yorker where he said that he wrote a fifty page statement in order to get screen credit for BATMAN FOREVER, despite having contributed far less than that on the actual screenplay. When it comes to films with that many screenwriters, the WGA has been known to put more weight on a writer's statement than their actual contribution to the script.

 

Dark City has story and screenplay by Proyas. My position is that isn't the same as an uncredited rewrite with another party entirely. As to the general problem of WGA relying on statements, since your authority is an AICN interview with Proyas, that's pretty much a wash.

But, if you insist on thinking the auteur Proyas was fantastic in Dark City but for some unspecified (metaphysically unknowable?) reason incompetent in Knowing, that is your privilege. It doesn't pass the sniff test for making sense, whereas my position that Dark City had an artistically coherent script, as opposed to script by committee at least gives a possible.

Alas, The Wrath of Khan's reputation for goodness is vastly overrated. The scene where Paul Winfield suddenly finds mental reserves to overcome the brain bug, and it for some reason crawls out, is cringe-inducing. I think a script with such a horrible scene doesn't count as well-written.

 

Not for me. I thought Knowing at least had a good theory going for it. The execution was just sloppy. The same with I, Robot.

There's no reason why this guy can't make another great movie just because he's had a couple of serious missteps.

 

DARK CITY has a story by Proyas, and a screenplay by Proyas, Goyer, and Dobbs. Reading further, it seems that the WGA was reluctant to even let three screenwriters receive credit for the film, but finally relented. That reluctance suggests how indicative the process of distributing screen credit is of a writer’s actual contribution to the script.

This isn’t a new phenomenon, by any means. Recently, I’ve been doing research about (in part) the authorship of THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953) and THEM! (1954) In both cases, the final SWG (the precursor to the WGA) approved screen credit does not reflect the actual contributions of the writers involved at all.

Finally, I think it is perfectly reasonable to draw a distinction between statements to receive the all-important screen credit, and a filmmaker’s statement after the fact explaining the production process in an interview, don’t you think?

Thanks to you, the deficiencies in the screenplay of KNOWING have been well-argued. No need to elaborate further. The knowledge that Proyas (and a co-writer) did a final, considerable re-write of KNOWING lays a significant amount of blame upon Proyas for these deficiencies.

In terms of direction, I can think of no visuals in the film that come close to the power and originality of those presented in DARK CITY. Think of the terrific "tuning" sequences and then present something of equal note in KNOWING. I know I can't of anything. And as far as performances go, Proyas let Nicolas Cage deliver one of the worst leading performances in recent memory (though it isn't as embarrassing as Cage's performance in NEXT, I'll grant you that). He managed to elicit far more out of the cast of DARK CITY.

As far as the "auteur" Proyas, don't put words in my mouth.

Oh, it's a total cheat that the best Terrell (the guest star) can do is commit suicide, while Chekov (the regular) gets to collapse and live another day, but since the only explanation of the Ceti Eel's life-cycle comes from Khan when he's doing his best to scare the hell out of Chekov and Terrell, I think that can be taken with a grain of salt.

...

But, that said, I have let this thread get away from itself on this little tangent. Time to let it rest, I think.

 

What people say when getting official credit, and money is at stake (and potential lawsuits,) is to my mind a lot more serious than an interview with AICN. Which I guess shows how diametrically opposed our ways of seeing things are.

But since the auteur theory is the conventional wisdom, to the point where the directors in practice get all the credit (practically no one talks about writers, even if they explicitly claim they don't hold to the auteur theory!)then if you have a different view it needs to be more clearly expressed. One gets used to the default.

The big scenes in Knowing are done with great competence. They aren't scifi scenes, but things like a subway train wreck. Technically I'd guess that they are better by far than the FX in Dark City. It's the exotic appeal of Dark City, but that makes it something of an apples and oranges comparison. The exotic planet in Knowing however is actually as striking as any image in Dark City. It's just that it doesn't fit in with the rest of the movie, takes a wild emotional and thematic detour and thereby loses emotional impact. In other words, it isn't written as part of a coherent story.

Again, I attribute that to a script cobbled together instead of actually created (something the director doesn't really do in scripted productions.) Again, I don't understand how others who do give Proyas the credit explain why he's terrific in one movie but a boob in another.

 

My extensive research this evening (read: the wikipedia article on WGA arbitration) says that the guild has won most lawsuits over the arbitration process. Moreover, the identities of the arbiters and their reasoning is kept secret. Thus, I don't put much stake in their final process of distributing credit. Plenty of other people in Hollywood, including writers, don't either.

If you're giving me shit because the interview was conducted by AICN, here's another interview where Proyas makes the exact same statement about the writing process. AICN isn't a choice source for movie criticism or news, but it's not a bad place to find interviews with filmmakers.

When it was first proposed, the auteur theory stated that an select group of directors had a distinctive style that could be seen from film to film and therefore they should be considered the "author" of the films they direct. The part about exclusivity seems to get lost these days, which is probably why the French film journal that created and advocated the auteur theory beginning in the 50s have since backed off from it.

The director-centric thinking you identify isn't just auteur theory, then. It's more like auteur theory on acid. Truffaut never meant to advocate that somebody like Brett Ratner was an auteur.

And, again, I point out that he substantially re-wrote the screenplay. I also point out the performances in both films, which he directed, and which are quite worse in KNOWING than in DARK CITY.

And in both cases (as well as in I, ROBOT) Proyas was happy with the final result. If Proyas' judgment is one that leads him to be equally pleased with KNOWING and DARK CITY, then he has no judgment. Which leads to the very first question I asked in this thread.

Silly me saying I'd call it a day, though.

 

Really not trying to give you or anyone shit, but there is only one Alex Proyas. All the poking is just to understand why and/or how you can think Proyas is so differently talented on one occasion than another. To my eyes, you just keep assuming the director is the only one to pay attention to,

You even go to the extreme of assuming that Proyas just "let" Nicholas Cage play the role as the actor wished. Cage is a big name in Hollywood and Proyas is just the director. The other performances in Knowing were unexceptional. But I could see taking exception to Kiefer Sutherland's strange mannerisms or William Hurt's dour turn in Dark City.

Similarly, Will Smith's box office got I, Robot greenlit. The screenplay segued from a competent but unoriginal scifi thriller to a moderately cerebral Asimovian plot obviously inspired by the last story in the I, Robot collection that lacked a cerebral hero to anchor the climax. The script needed to be fixed but Proyas couldn't shunt the movie's star to one side just so the movie had an emotionally coherent resolution. He was only the director.

The Crow I haven't seen but it had a solid pair of genre experienced writers adapting the material, David Schow and John Shirley. Could it be the script was good and all it needed was a competent execution to make a good movie?

As far as being satisfied goes, I'm pretty sure that being publicly dissatisfied is generally regarded as being unprofessional.

To repeat, I'm not trying to give anyone shit but no one in practice talks about anything but the director, even if they say they don't hold to any extreme auteur theory.