Ridley Scott is currently in line to direct the adaptation to the futuristic war novel “The Forever War.” Fox 2000 has just acquired the rights to Joe Haldeman’s 1974 novel. The science fiction and futuristic setting would be familiar ground for Scott, due to his success with “Blade Runner” and “Alien.”
Scott’s most recent movie, “Body of Lies,” the Leonardo Dicaprio and Russell Crowe terrorism thriller bombed at the box office last weekend and his next project “Nottingham,” sounds like it could go either way. So it could be nice for Scott to begin working in a genre he feels at home in. Fortunately for Scott, he has finally gotten to opportunity to direct the film after years of trying, “I first pursued ‘Forever War’ 25 years ago, and the book has only gotten more timely and relevant since. It is a science fiction epic, a bit of ‘The Odyssey’ by way of ‘Blade Runner,’ built upon a brilliant, disorienting premise.”
“Forever War” follows an extremely intelligent university student in a futuristic earth as he is recruited to battle a far-off alien species. He returns a few months later to find out the time dilation due to the extreme speeds at which their spacecraft travels has caused a quarter century to pass on earth. The soldiers struggle to assimilate back into a society which has since instated homosexuality to deal with overpopulation. Unable to deal with the gay-centric society the (homophobic?) protagonist continues to go on countless more outerspace tours, only to become more and more disconnected from the world around him.
We wonder if they’ll drop or play up the homosexual/homophobia angle? It’s definitely an interesting twist to sci-fi. Scott is on a sci-fi kick of late, he’s also developing, Aldous Huxley‘s “Brave New World,” with Leonardo DiCaprio. Maybe he’s finally realizing the sci-fi genre is what his audience really love him for? It hasn’t been his bread and butter in a long time, but we’ll see how it pans out.
That guy on the cover is a spitting image of James Franco.
Ha, totally!
Okay I am the one who has been bit**ing about no homos in space for many years. I only hope Scott can do this film justice. He has no homosexuality films under his belt , except Thelma and Louise. Tat I know of. So can he produce or will he run and hide. If he choses Christian Bale for the main role I hope he gets airlockedintospace.