Vulcan's Hammer: Hunger Games And I Am Legend Director To Adapt Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick is heading back to the big screen with a little help from director Francis Lawrence ("The Hunger Games"). The influential sci-fi author is best known for penning "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (AKA "Blade Runner") but he also wrote the short stories "Minority Report" (AKA ... the movie "Minority Report") and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (AKA "Total Recall"). If you're keyed into science-fiction movies, you've definitely seen something inspired or ripped from the mind of Dick, even if you've never read his work. Although you really should, he's the man and he has a pretty large body of work to explore despite the fact that he passed away in 1982 when he was in his early fifties.
But if you've never heard of Dick or the movies influenced by his stories, maybe this news will be the catalyst you're looking for to jump right in. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lawrence, his company About:blank, and New Republic Pictures are coming together to adapt Dick's novel "Vulcan's Hammer." Besides spearheading the business aspect of the project, Lawrence, who has a resume filled with dystopian sci-fi bangers including "I Am Legend," is also set to direct which feels like a solid match.
Hammer Time
"Vulcan's Hammer" was published in 1960 and takes place on earth in 2029. (Spooky scary!) The novel is set after a horrible world war causes the formation of an organization called Unity that runs essentially the entire world with the help of some AI technology. One of Unity's Vulcan AI computers becomes sentient and things get even bleaker than they were before. In classic Dick style, it's a novel that asks a lot of philosophical leaning questions but is still delightfully pulpy sci-fi. I'd bet the movie will dig into the question of sentience and the double crossing that's laced throughout the novel.
Rounding out the team that's been announced so far is Brian Oliver, Bradley Fischer, Cameron MacConomy, and Isa Dick Hackett who will all be taking on producer roles. There's no word on who will be staring in the film, when it might be released or where it might be released, but considering this news is hot off the press, that's to be expected. Until we get a little more news about "Vulcan's Hammer," why don't you use this as your excuse to check out the many Dick adaptations that are already out in the wild, including the TV version of the "The Man in the High Castle" or the rotoscoped "Through A Scanner Darkly."