Hot on the heels of next month's release The Adjustment Bureau, another adaptation of the imperious author
Philip K Dick appears to be on the cards. This time the director in question is
Michel Gondry and the source text is Dicks novel
UBIK. Regarded among the authors finest works, UBIK typically depicts a dystopian future society in which human society has evolved to the point of uniform psychic phenomena amongst the population and commercial space-travel is commonplace. The storys protagonist is an anti-psychic espionage agent named Joe Chip whose investigation leads him into a murky, surreal underworld in which the known plains of human existence gradually begin to fall apart. It is typically Dick, whose novels are notoriously difficult to portray on the big screen. Regrettably, in Gondry, the work has a director who may have bitten off a little more than he is able to chew. Having recently embarrassed himself in the 3D diabolism that was The Green Hornet, Gondry who was quoted in the
French media as being ready to direct the adaptation once his work on The We and I is Complete- is plainly keen to claw back a little credibility. The announced production team thus far consists of American Gangster co-scribes
Steve Zallian and
Garrett Basch who are said to be collaborating with Anonymous Content. With no set date for principle photography and a script yet to be finalised, UBIK is unlikely to see the light of day in well over a year.
In addition to the Dick movie, Gondry has also mooted a documentary film about the linguist and political philosopher Noam Chomsky, the cumulative impression of his prior work does not imply a man up to such subject matters. For now, Gondry is gearing up to direct The We and I this summer, which
The Playlist were told by the director directly;
Its about the group effect, how people in groups transform when the group is dislocated, because everyone jumps out of the bus at different times, there is a smaller group and how the relationships evolve, Gondry told us adding, Its not actors, its going to be kids from a school in the Bronx. I love kids and just people too because they are not polluted by the medium. They come as they are and they have beautiful stories to tell, so I want to show that. The drama will revolve around 35 kids going to school on a bus and will thematically delve into how the group affects the individual.