Karla from Downey here…
Last October, acclaimed director Steven Spielberg announced he would be taking on an adaptation of Daniel H. Wilson’s sci-fi novel “Robopocalypse” as his next project. 20th Century Fox and Dreamworks have teamed up to finance this film, but up until now the only news to speak of is a scheduled release date of April 25, 2014.
According to Deadline, Spielberg has made it known that Chris Hemsworth is his first choice to star in the film about an apocalyptic robot rebellion. Since his breakout role as Thor, Hemsworth’s star is on the rise. Even though no official offer has been made, I can definitely see Hemsworth taking the lead in a tale about humanity’s fight for survival against artificially intelligent machines. In the book, Archos is an A.I. program that becomes self aware and sets about preserving “life” and the world, even if it means wiping out the human race in order to do so. Since humanity is the primary source of said destruction, we become the target. Anything with a chip (planes, trains, and automobiles) has been infected and now follows the original programming of Archos, to end the human race. The story follows the events of several characters as they form the human resistance and fight back against “Big Rob” and the machines.
This sounds like an excellent premise with diamond credentials; a rising star, one of the world’s best directors, and the financial backing of two major studios. I’m just wondering how this story will differentiate itself from all the other the-machines-have-taken-over-and-want-to-wipeout-humanity movies out there. Only the future will tell!