quietearth [Celluloid 06.11.07] post apocalyptic movie news



From the SCI FI WIRE:

Writer/director Eli Roth (the Hostel films) told SCI FI Wire that he wanted to adapt Stephen King's novel Cell as his next project because he considers the story timely and relevant. In the novel, cellular telephones help turn people into zombies.


"I love the idea that technology turns on us," Roth said in an interview while promoting his second Hostel movie. "I have always wanted to make an apocalypse movie, and I like that this isn't a straight zombie movie, that these are humans who are crazy, whose brains have been scrambled by cell phones. I read that a quarter of the U.S. bee population has died off, and they don't know what's killing the bees. Is it a virus? There are people who think it could be cell phones, that they're screwing up the bees' radar, and they can't get back to their hives." (In fact, the study suggesting this has been discredited, the Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend.)

Roth quoted physicist Albert Einstein as saying that if bees became extinct, the human race would follow in four years. "So I'm thinking it's already starting to happen, that all these cell phones in our culture and our world are going to start affecting us and the planet in ways we cannot even imagine," Roth said.

Bees or not, Roth added, "What really made me want to do Cell was Hurricane Katrina. You just saw, in a matter of hours, the total breakdown and complete destruction of society. People almost reverted to some primal, animal state. You looked on TV, and there were bodies floating down the street and people shooting at each other, and nobody showed up. The police quit and the Army didn't show up for five days."

Roth said that he has conferred with King, who told the filmmaker to make Cell his own. "I had heard he was pissed at Stanley Kubrick about The Shining, which is a film I love," Roth said. "I thought, 'OK, Stephen King is my favorite writer. I don't want him mad at me.' I said, 'I will do this if it's really an adaptation. I'm not going to do a straight re-creation. I'm not going to film the book. I'm going to take core elements of the book and the story, but I'm going to make it into a film. I'm going to adapt it.' He said, 'No worries. Do whatever you want. This is your adaptation of Cell.'"

Original story:
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=3&id=41891

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Dogmeat (15 years ago) Reply

Interesting, although the book was pretty standard fare I think. As King said, it's basically a combination of I Am Legend and Dawn of the Dead.

quietearth (15 years ago) Reply

good plot, bad implementation in my opinion.

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