Kimberly Peirce Wants to Make 'Childhood's End'
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Scripts
If there is one thing you can say about director Kimberly Peirce, it's that she likes to keep things fresh and interesting. She found huge success with Boy's Don't Cry, and now she's following up the story of Brendan Teena with Stop Loss -- a war story of all things, about a soldier who refuses to return to battle. If you thought that was a bit of a theme change, get a load of the other project she'd like to helm -- a big-screen adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. Yes, that's sci-fi, folks.She recently talked about the possibility with MTV and says: "I love Childhood's End. That's a phenomenal book. We have a draft of that and we'll see if Universal wants to make it." What does she have in mind? "If you're going to launch something that big, you need a big movie star. It's probably not less than a 70 million dollar movie. You go to that movie with a certain appetite for spectacle." For those of you who haven't read it -- it's a different kind of post-apocalyptic future. In Clarke's world, aliens come to earth and help end wars, get people happy, and prolong life, which brings the Earth into a utopia. The twist -- these aliens look just like Satan.
But right now, it's just a script and a hope. Meanwhile, she's penning a "dark, sexual story" set in New Orleans that follows "the rise of a great American gangster." So, would you like to see Clarke's world hit the big screen, and can Peirce pull it off?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-09-2008 @ 6:24PM
gottacook said...
The quote "If you're going to launch something that big, you need a big movie star" worries me. I've read and reread this book starting in 1969 when I was 12. There is no one who can be called a central character until about the second half of the book, really; he's a young black guy (specified as such by Clarke in 1953) who travels as a stowaway to the Overlords' home planet and is in for a big surprise upon his return to Earth. I don't recall a movie depending on a big star who is absent from the entire first half of the story; my concern is that the first half (the coming of the Overlords to Earth, their emergence 50 years later, and the immediate effects of the reaction to their appearance) will be stinted.
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1-09-2008 @ 9:55PM
William said...
This sounds like kind of a kick ass idea and a new twist in the genre. I mean let's face it there aren't too many stories with a future Utopian ring to them, except maybe The Time Machine, and even then, there is that bogeyman threat. So if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...? So what do these aliens really want? I like the fact that they look like devils, act like Jesus or Ghandi, but what is their motivation. I love the premise.
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1-10-2008 @ 12:38AM
savebigwilly said...
I am so happy that I read the wikipedia link before finishing your post: "The twist-- the aliens look just like satan". 'The twist--..." should at least have a spoiler warning or something. C'mon!
And I, for one, would like to welcome our Kimberly Peirce overlord.
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1-10-2008 @ 7:41AM
John R said...
Wow, I'm going to have to read this book.
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