With their now expected levels of secrecy and sneakiness, it seems that JJ Abrams and Bad Robot are already deep into bringing a mysterious movie called 500 Rads to the screen. At least that’s if it will be called 500 Rads and this isn’t just some kind of hazy-fantazy codename.

The leaked information so far pegs the film at a sweet little $25 million budget and alleges that production will take place in Europe. The story was apparently formulated by Abrams who handed it off to Jeff Pinkner to write the screenplay, and now it seems that some other scribes from the Bad Robot mafia will be taking a pass too while Pinker gets busy at the Fringe again.

Seeing as their source has told them to expect 500 Rads to fall in the vein of both Cloverfield and 28 Days Later, and because they’ve researched enough to find out that Rads refers to radiation, Pajiba are speculating that this might be a zombie picture of some kind. I’m just thinking there’s video cameras involved.

My research into radiation has yielded little more of any definite use, though I can tell you that 500 Rads is the absorbed dose that will turn a guy sterile - a woman would need to be hit by 600 Rads - so there’s an off chance that Abrams and co. are playing with fertility sci-fi, ala Children of Men, ZPG and so on. Having said that, other sources I surfed to in my research told me that 500 Rads would be enough to kill you… well, I guess the dead are pretty sterile. I await the actual factuals from our well informed readership in the comments section below.

Seeing as there’s no director attached as yet, this could be a project Abrams himself decides to take ownership of. On the other hand, it probably won’t be and he’ll pull in somebody else.

I’m pretty sure this is a separate and distinct project from Abrams’ previously announced earthquake movie. That one had David Seltzer involved, for one thing… and while I can tie radiation and seismic shifts together quite easily, it doesn’t really add up.