So, remember back at the beginning of May when it was reported that Michel Gondry had dropped an adaptation of Philip K. Dick‘s “Ubik“? Well, you can scratch that. It turns out that no long after that, he spoke with Den Of Geek and said the movie was still in play, though adapting it was proving to be a challenge.
“I’m not sure yet,” he told the site when asked if he was going to direct the project. “I’m still working on it, but it’s taking forever.” But again, the transition from page to screen seems to be a tricky one for the director. “It’s a very strong and dark story. There’s a lot of surprises. The book takes you to places you don’t expect to go. It makes it very hard to adapt, so I’m a bit scared at the moment!” he explained.
So this one looks like it’s a bit of a way off, and indeed, Gondry’s next film is the road trip fantasy “Microbe et gasoil” which starts shooting this summer.
Meanwhile, after gridiron success with “The Blind Side,” director John Lee Hancock is ready to get back to the ball diamond that served him well in “The Rookie,” and helm an untitled movie about baseball player Lenny Dykstra. If you’re not up on your sports trivia, Variety explains that the former player, who was part of the 1986 championship New York Mets, basically had rough post-baseball career, with a financial empire that eventually crumbled and found him pleading guilty to bankruptcy fraud in 2012, spending six months in prison. Dysktra has optioned his life rights so that’s how this is getting made, and while he wants Mark Wahlberg or Matt Damon to play him, we’ll see who steps up to the plate.
I love Gondry's work in videoclips. But his latest take on Boris Vian "L'ecume des jours" was a total disaster. He completely destroyed it. I hope he will not do the same on UBIK.
Damn it, I reaaally wanted Richard Linklater for Ubik. Don't get me wrong, I love Gondry's work, (except for Mood Indigo) but Linklater did a wonderful job with A Scanner Darkly and he does his research thoroughly. Plus he knows PKD's family…
Ubik is a great book and one of the most accessible works by PKD. I understand that it's really hard to adapt, it's filled with complicated ideas that are also vital to the story. The twists and turns are indeed crazy, the ending especially. Looking forward to this, I think Gondry could make a Ubik film really work.