Cinematical

I bet a whole lot of our astute and sci-fi-addicted readers remember the 1970 Joseph Sargent / James Bridges flick called Colossus: The Forbin Project -- and you can bet that producer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard remember the movie too. It looks like they'll be teaming up with Universal to mount a remake of the cult not-so-classic. The plan is to use the original film as sort of a jumping-off point. Up and coming screenwriter Jason Rothenberg will be using three books by D.F. Jones as his source material, which means yes: That's probably a franchise you smell brewing.

As Variety handily points out, Colossus has a lot in common with movies like The Terminator and The Matrix, although (obviously) this one came first. It's about a pair of hyper-brilliant super-computers (one Russian, one American) who get "linked up," only to decide that mankind deserves to be enslaved and therefore threatens the planet with nuclear devastation. (Hmm, I think I need to see this movie again.) But like I said, Mr. Rothenberg will be using two extra books when penning his screenplay, so the new-fangled adaptation will probably look a whole lot different than the 1970 version.

Anyone else out there just add Colossus to your Netflix queue? I know this news sounds like "just another remake," but I don't see it that way. It's not like Universal considers "Colossus: The Forbin Project" a well-known film. More likely that Rothenberg loves the books and did what he could to get his new adaptation off the ground. Plus, "computers gone wild" is a really fun concept. (Other movies that feature computers too smart for their own good include 2001: A Space Odyssey, WarGames, Short Circuit and Electric Dreams.)