New Line founders Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne are developing an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's 1951 novel Foundation, the first in Asimov’s classic space opera saga. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Shaye said, “our idea is to renew the worldwide audience’s appetite for the story” but he added that it is a complex novel, "this is not a script you can knock out in six months." Shaye and Lynne plan to adapt the first book, but if the first Foundation movie is successful, aim to create an entire new Foundation movie trilogy just as New Line did with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
Despite having edited or written more than 500 books, it's surprising how little of Isaac Asimov's work has made it to the big screen. Previous adaptations include the misguided Will Smith feature I, Robot, the lame Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams, two B-grade adaptations of Nightfall and the recently announced The End of Eternity. This is a disappointing collection considering the amount of great science fiction material Asimov created.
"Isaac Asimov had writer's block once," fellow science fiction writer Harlan Ellison said, referring to Asimov's impressive output. "It was the worst ten minutes of his life."
Asimov’s Foundation tells the story Hari Seldon, a scientist who has figured out how to predict the future based on a branch of mathematics he developed called psychohistory. The behaviour of a mass of people is predictable if the quantity of this mass is very large. The larger the mass (in this case galactic populations), the more predictable the future.
Using psychohistory Seldon foresees the fall of the Galactic Empire and a Dark Age lasting thirty thousand years before a second great empire arises. To shorten this Dark Age, he creates two Foundations on opposite ends of the galaxy, each Foundation designed to keep scientific knowledge alive. Most of the events in the Foundation novels revolve around the first Foundation on a planet called Terminus. The Foundation saga is set so far into the future that Earth is nothing but a memory.
I’m a big fan of Asimov’s work, even the later Foundation novels which became longer and longer and it seemed were edited less and less, such as Foundation and Earth and Foundations Edge.
The original three books that made up the Foundation trilogy, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation, won the one off Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. They also produced two of my favourite Asimov quotes:“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right” and “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”.
The possibilities for sequels and further tie in movies are numerous. The Foundation books alone are enough for another twelve movies and are set in the same fictional universe (but in a later time period) as Asimov’s Robot Series. What about a robot trilogy based on Asimov’s robot novels The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn? If you’re a film producer, I encourage you to look into it!
Gentlebeings,
Foundation is not, and never was a novel. And there is no trilogy. A publisher broke this series of short stories into three volumes when they were published in book form. He wrote a short intro at that time to help tie them together.
If you truly respect the good doctor, remember that he NEVER liked it when people called these novels, or a trilogy.
A quick rant: 'I, Robot' is the WORST adaptation of any science fiction story by any author, and that is including 'Total Recall'. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of uber-hack "script-doctor" Akiva Goldsman; the man can transform pure gold to dull lead with the touch of a single finger...
How many years was the original screenplay for "I, Robot" floating around Hollywood? The one written by Harlan Ellison with help from Asimov himself? The one that was COMPLETELY IGNORED in favor of a mindless explosion-fest with Will Smith effortlessly juggling product-placements in-between truly awful dialogue like:
Farber: Ass high-spankable man.
Detective Del Spooner: What does that even mean?
Farber: You know what it means.
Or how about this gem of a line, which I'm sure Mr. Asimov always meant to include in his original story:
Farber: You can kiss my ass, metal dick!
Genius. And for this, I wasted an hour and a half of my life? I'm not holding any hope whatsoever that "Foundation" will be any better after it's been passed through the Hollywood system and dropped on the public - the kindest thing the hacks there could do for real science fiction fans is to never make another movie from the great works in the genre. They just don't have the talent.
@ Unamused
Quit generalizing!
Sit back, wait for the reviews when it's done. If they are crap, don't waste ur time or money.
But don't write it off just because the one past adaption was crap - it serves u right anyway, why would you consider watching anything with twits like Wil Smith in the cast?!?!? I mean seriously....
Anyway, be patent and above all remain...
O P E N - M I N D E D
I know and agree with most of the postings but I remember that lord of the rings and the hobbit were made quite awhile ago and they were terrible, the movies finally came out in the past 10 years and they were great, hopefully the same thing will happen with the foundation books and they will be great
Soccerdad, Fantastic Voyage was not a novel first. He ended up writing it, then, unsatisfied wrote Fantastic Voyage 2: Destination Brain. That should become a film. Also, if we're going to do a Foundation or robot movie, why not include the galactic empire novels. They did start everything off, even if their timeline is set afterwards...
Well, they started with I Robot, which according to the time line in Prelude to Foundation, was the first chronologically, so next they should go to The Caves of Steel, then Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn, through Foundation and Earth. Don't skip from I Robot to Foundation. If you're going to screw the series up, at least do it right.
I adapted the story of I, Robot (although not the dialog which I found inoffensive enough). I also invented the Jedi, The Force, The Pirate Code, in short, I've 'script doctored' more than 300 (oops) scripts, including three or four with Goldman (aka "Roy Hunt") and including Lord of the Rings, Titanic, Forrest Gump, and many more.
The Foundation series would be a terrible choice for cinematic production and this effort should not be pursued. It would result in financial calamity.
After reading posts here, and other sites devoted to the discussion of the possibility of a screen adaptation of the "Foundation" series, there seems to be a prevailing popular consensus that the books contain very little character development, a lack of action. and inferior roles for women. I have come to a few contrary conclusions, and yes, as you may suspect I will share them with you.
First, the prospect of character progression is completely unimportant to move the story forward. This is a long tale and all we need to know is how the main characters influenced the eventual outcome. Let's face it, the bible is a big book, but do we really care about how Noah spent his Saturday nights with his poker buddies?
The second problem that a lot of Sci-Fi fans seemed to have, is that there is way to much " Dialogue-to-Action". It is true that these books are driven by dialogue, but it is untrue to suggest that they are deficient in action. There are intrigues, confrontations, abductions, and space ship battles, enough to go around.
As for the lack of feminine strength: balderdash! Although the story is a product of the 1950s, let us not forget that there are several strong female characters in these books, at least one of whom was in a position of authority on her home planet. Should we also forget that a 14-year old girl was instrumental in discovering the extent of the Second Foundation operatives?
I strongly feel that a credible film sequence of "Foundation" could be delivered by a series of different directors and art directors, each involved with a particular part of the Galactic Empire's demise and resurrection, if only to remind us that styles and impressions do change, as Asimov plainly stated. Any one director and team would add a stylized creative continuity that would not exist over the span of the stories.
Well, if it turns out that the usual Hollywood suspects have been signed on to turn "Foundation" into a blockbuster, I guess that the result will be a "Star Wars" which was a bunch of fun, but not even a piece of serious science fiction.
Asimov deserves better.
Hollywood currently operates under a personality-centric model for actors. Many productions take large chunks out of their budgets in casting A-list actors to fill in the lead roles.
The problem with Foundation is that there is no such thing as a main character. The underlying principle of the entire series is the behaviour of large amounts of people. Likewise, no one character that has a lot of floor time is much more important than the next. Beyond Hari Seldon, perhaps.... and Maybe R. Daneel Olivaw. But seldon only has a minor physical role in the actual progression of the (non-prelude) story, and Olivaw doesnt even show up until later on.
Case in point, a foundation movie would require a much more complex cast than most movies today posess. Most studios would most likely attempt to pick only one subplot of the entire series so that they can apply the formula to it, and perhaps attach a few notable actors to play the main characters in that particular story.
If I were in charge, I'd mostly focus on the story of the Mule and Second foundation, and use the events of the first book as a background. This would make more sense, as the first book was really a collection of short stories to begin with. So, lets say we have one story dedicated to the mule and his conquests, leave off either at the end of Foundation and Empire, or in the middle of Second Foundation, and then make the second movie about the second half of Second Foundation. That would split neatly into complete plots, and it still leaves room for another movie to make a trilogy. The only problem is recasting everybody for each movie.
I've been contemplating how these movies would work for years now. I think the idea of a trilogy would be a mistake. The first book alone would make for at least 2 movies. The movies could get progressively longer, as the material allows. Should the series become viable, there is always room for the old Hollywood standby, the prequel. Just my 2 cents.
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