jonrog1 is writing Asimov's FOUNDATION?!?!?!

[Eridanis]

Woot! I just read this on Sci-Fi Wire:

John Rogers (co-screenwriter of The Core) told SCI FI Wire that he has finished a screenplay for a film adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy of SF books for director Shekhar Kapur. "He said to focus on the 'Mule' arc in the second book, and that was the way in," Rogers said in an interview. "Now we'll see if it's one movie, two or three."

The adaptation required Rogers to pull out pieces of action from a largely theoretical work. "Isaac Asimov is a real intellectual, so chapters would start with 'That was a thrilling escape from the space pirates, wasn't it? Yes, it was. Now about economics.' As a writer, I need the space pirates. I just can't have the economics discussion here. So there was a lot of trying to stay in the spirit of Asimov [while] at the same time expanding the text." No studio attachment or production start date has been announced.

Congrats! And good luck!

 

[TeeSeeJay]

<EDIT>

That wasn't nice. I wanted to say simply that I'm not impressed with the director, here.

 

[DanMcS]

I guess we know what the mysterious 'first drafts' he mentioned in his story hour were about now. Time to reread those books.

 

[Pielorinho]

Here's hoping he includes my favorite scene:

Schmoe A is trying to convince Schmoe B that nuclear power is a great thing. "Why," he says, "atomic energy is so powerful, conceivably one day every housewife can have an entire laundry facility that fits inside a closet!"*

Go Isaac, you prophet you!

Daniel

*paraphrased from memory

 

[Dr Midnight]

Wait... so Jonrog1 is the guy from this AICN article??
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=14288
Weird.

Now I'm reading where all the underwear-clad geeks lash out at subject x (also known as "talk back"), and I'm astounded by how many of them are backing up John's rant. These people tend to be the most negative bastards on the in-ter-net.

Dammit, I need to be a professional screenwriter.

 

[WizarDru]

None other. More importantly, he's one of the creative forces involved in "Jackie Chan Adventures", which is one of the best shows (animated or otherwise) on television today. For that alone, he deserves a tip o' the hat.

 

[G.A. Donis]

I read the first couple of books in the Foundation series and from what I remember, a movie of the books (at least the first three) would be pretty boring unless there was a fair amount of embellishment to the text. I seem to remember reading the forward to one of the books and in it Asimov himself said that, while rereading the earlier books to get back into the swing of things, he kept waiting for something to happen and it never did.