In the wake of 2011’s excellent “Pariah” it was no surprise that writer/director Dee Rees was getting lots of work. She wrote a script called “Large Print,” teamed with Viola Davis on a project for HBO and lined up an indie romance, “This Man, This Woman.” But disappointingly, none of those have yet borne fruit. Nonetheless, we’re glad she’s still plugging away and now, on an intriguing new venture we couldn’t really have imagined with Rees’ name attached.
Deadline reports that Rees will adapt and direct Philip K. Dick’s “Martian Time-Slip” for the big screen. As as is usual for anything from the pen of Dick, the story concerns space, paranoia, faceless authority and much more. Here’s the Amazon synopsis of the book:
On an arid Mars, local bigwigs compete with Earth-bound interlopers to buy up land before the UN develops it and its value skyrockets. Martian Union leader Arnie Kott has an ace up his sleeve, though: an autistic boy named Manfred who seems to have the ability to see the future. In the hopes of gaining an advantage on a Martian real estate deal, powerful people force Manfred to send them into the future, where they can learn about development plans. But is Manfred sending them to the real future or one colored by his own dark and paranoid filter? As the time travelers are drawn into Manfred’s dark worldview in both the future and present, the cost of doing business may drive them all insane.
Again, this is a fairly inspired, unexpected choice but with the author’s children behind the production, clearly they believe Rees can bring something to the material. Frankly, we’re curious to see what that will be too. “The Martin Time-Slip” joins a number of Dick adaptations in the works including Michel Gondry‘s “Ubik,” Marc Forster‘s “Electric Ant” (which musta slipped under our radar) and more. So good news for sci-fa fans but let us know below what Rees will have to do right to make ‘Time-Slip’ great.
