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

[jefferiestubes8]

Alex Proyas (Dark City, Knowing) will produce and may direct AMP for Summit Entertainment. The studio just picked up the rights to the Daniel H. Wilson thriller novel, which is being called “a mix of scifi action and political allegory reminiscent of District 9.” The plot of the unpublished book, which will hit shelves in June 2011, features “a world where the technology designed to make the disabled whole, turns them into supermen.”

And, yes, that’s the same Daniel H. Wilson behind the novel Robopocalypse, which Steven Spielberg is set to direct in 2012, after he finishes Lincoln with Daniel Day-Lewis. And, just as happened with the development of Robopocalypse, the idea is for the script to be written more or less concurrent with the novel. As Mr. Wilson writes, pages will be handed to a screenwriter to craft into the script.

Deadline reports that part of the package here involves Alex Proyas making AMP in Australia for “a modest budget,”

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

[Harvey]

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?

[Hugo Rune]

Harvey wrote:

---

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

[Pingfah]

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

[Harvey]

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

[Kegg]

Harvey wrote:

---

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?

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.

[Harvey]

^^
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.

[stj]

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.

[Harvey]

Actually...

Alex Proyas wrote:

---

I rewrote KNOWING considerably, yeah. I mean everything that I do, I am involved, whether I am a credited writer or not, I am pretty heavily involved. I think it is really important to do that and so… I do like working with other writers, the majority of the development process on KNOWING was done with a buddy of mine, Stuart Hazeldine, who we have collaborated with before, we have co written a couple of things that didn’t get made.

LINK.

[FordSVT]

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.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Hmm reminds me of a DS9 episode.

[Pingfah]

Harvey wrote:

---

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

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.

[stj]

Harvey wrote:

---

Actually...

LINK.

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.

[Harvey]

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.

[stj]

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.