My god, where does J.J. Abrams find the time? This fall alone, he’s gearing up to direct “Super 8”, his latest TV show “Undercovers” will debut, and he’s producing “Mission Impossible 4” for Brad Bird and Tom Cruise, not to mention work on “Star Trek 2,” which will film sometime next year (although it seems that Abrams may not direct). He’s also got a fistful of projects in development, and he’s just added one more to the slate of his production company, Bad Robot.
Paramount and Abrams’ shingle have picked up the rights to the graphic novel “Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel,” by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett. The book, which was ten years in the making, follows the titular robot, created in 1893, who over the next 25 years, goes on a variety of adventures, from the South Pole and the Klondike Gold Rush to fighting in World War I. From looking at the book’s website (which predated the finished product, leading some, presumably idiots, to believe it was true) and trailer, embedded below thanks to HitFix, it’s clearly a well-researched alternative history, although we can’t speak to the quality of the book.
It’s an intriguing prospect for Abrams — the scope appears to be enormous, but the tone of the source material suggests that it’s not going to be some action-filled blockbuster, but something a little more high-minded, at least in part. But it could also turn out to be somewhere between “Forrest Gump” and “Bicentennial Man.” Either way, there’s no writer or director attached yet, so this is probably a little way off yet. [Heat Vision]