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Coming soon: An underwater futuristic sci-fi western
Vampire movies, space adventures: What we need is a good underwater sci-fi movie, like The Abyss or Leviathan.
Kidding about Leviathan.
But we are in for another soggy sci-fi tale now that Gotham Group has optioned Dark Life, based on a book by Kat Falls, Variety reports:
Book will be published in May by Scholastic, which won the rights and inked a two-book deal after making a preemptive bid on the manuscript. Foreign publishing rights to the book, which generated considerable buzz in the pub world pre-sale, have been sold in six languages."Dark Life" is set in a near-future world in which rising ocean levels and natural catastrophes have led some people to homestead on the ocean floor. Story centers on an underwater teenage boy and a surface girl who join forces to uncover a government conspiracy.
This futuristic western sounds a bit like a wet Little House on the Prairie meets City of Ember meets The Little Mermaid, doesn't it?
Are you in?
By divephotog at 12:18 PM ON 01/26/10
Sounds like a poor mash-up of Waterworld and Serenity to me... yuch! =kh
By ulic at 12:23 PM ON 01/26/10
Don't forget to add in a little bit of Seaquest, DSV. Sigh.
By Kyle Nin at 12:29 PM ON 01/26/10
An underwater futuristic sci-fi western?
Wasn't the first season of "seaQuest" kind of like that?
By Lrdbowler at 12:35 PM ON 01/26/10
Sounds like a kids movie...
Sounds like SeaQuest, "Beneath the surface, lies our future!".
I loved Leviathan! Sure it's a rip-off of Alien, but it is a great movie on its own. So good it was ripped off by DeepStar Six, another favorite of mine.
By Praetor Shinzon II at 12:37 PM ON 01/26/10
I liked the first season of SEAQUEST DSV - they screwed it up after that.
Is this a 'kids' book? Sounds like it. DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER"!
More teen angst. More teen sex. Merboy and Landgirl. Double YUK!
By IronOre at 12:38 PM ON 01/26/10
When talking about great underwater scifi movies, you can't forget Sphere! Oh wait, yes you can...
By Gozer at 12:47 PM ON 01/26/10
Lrdbowler: "Sounds like a kids movie..."
Totally. The article says it's being published by Scholastic and I'm pretty sure they put out kids and young adult books. (The publishing industry really needs to rethink the term "young adult" because it always sounded a bit too "barely legalish" to me.)
Eh. This hardly sounds like it'll be in the vein of The Abyss, Leviathan, or even SeaQuest. And I was just thinking the other day how there hasn't been anything set underwater in a long time (no, seriously, I did).
Lrdbowler: "I loved Leviathan! Sure it's a rip-off of Alien, but it is a great movie on its own."
As B-movie as it was, it did have a great cast and a pretty f**ked-up horror story. Tainted Russian vodka used to infect the crew with a Frankensteinian (?) science experiment? Insane! And I don't care how low-budget a production it is, Peter Weller makes anything digestible... like Screamers.
By scjessey at 1:29 PM ON 01/26/10
"Reading level: Ages 9-12" - says Amazon.com.
By lazerus uchiha at 2:20 PM ON 01/26/10
sounds a little "preteen" to me but I guess it could be interesting.
hey! I'd watch it
By Lrdbowler at 2:31 PM ON 01/26/10
Gozer,
I concur... I watch anything that has Peter Weller in it. Whether its Buckaroo Banzai, Screamers, Robocop or Odyssey 5.
I'd rather see a PG-13 Underwater adventure story if we can't get an underwater action/drama like The Abyss.
This may end up becoming Vampires under the Sea finding love with Land-bound Werewolves to bank on the Twilight craze!
How about revisiting "Warlords of Atlantis" with the great Doug McClure from the 70's about a sub crew being rescued and brought to Atlantis!
By scif at 2:34 PM ON 01/26/10
I prefer Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
By MUADIB at 3:00 PM ON 01/26/10
Will it have teenage vampires sucking the life out of the story?
By R3MY at 4:13 PM ON 01/26/10
Hopefully they don't sell it to FOX.
By JustZisGuy at 4:21 PM ON 01/26/10
Can we somehow work in "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus", and maybe cast a couple of professional wrestlers as leads? Bangup boffo box office potential here!
By islesfan at 5:53 PM ON 01/26/10
Oh great, a sci-fi mash up of Firefly, Seaquest, and An Inconvenient Truth. Only one of those was good (I'll let you guess which one).
By Dagon's Homey at 5:59 PM ON 01/26/10
By divephotog at 6:50 PM ON 01/26/10
@R3MY hopefully they do get it on Fox, that way it dies as quick as it should obviously deserve... -kh
By M at 7:23 PM ON 01/26/10
Well it is a scholastic book so 1 would pretty much assume kid-thing yes? Voyage to the bottom of the sea was such great "B-movie" type cheesy fun!
By wraithfodder42 at 7:27 PM ON 01/26/10
Well, the jellyfish on the book cover is pretty but ... teenagers and gov't conspiracies?
Pass.
By ecgordon at 7:31 PM ON 01/26/10
I'll hold off judgment until I've read the book, but there are several elements that remind me of M. M. Buckner's "Hyperthought," which is a book I think would make a tremendous film.
By Gozer at 8:50 PM ON 01/26/10
Lrdbowler: "How about revisiting "Warlords of Atlantis" with the great Doug McClure from the 70's about a sub crew being rescued and brought to Atlantis!"
Oh, man, I remember that movie! Haven't seen it in forever.
JustZisGuy: "Can we somehow work in "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus"..."
Lord, I saw some of that last weekend. The same four recycled special effects shots was like watching an underwater version of the original Land of the Lost.
By Aeolius at 10:32 PM ON 01/26/10
One can always turn to iTunes, for the unaired pilot of "Aquaman", or the first season of "Surface". As for "homesteading on the ocean floor", I think seasteading ( http://seasteading.org/ )is a bit more topical. For a little realism, try the book "OCEAN" or the Blue Planet series on DVD. As for me, I've been running undersea D&D games since 1998.
By Capt Hal Jordan at 2:16 AM ON 01/27/10
if they REALLY want to make an "underwater Scifi" Just redo Seaquest DSV and drop this charlie foxtrot of an idea. (Rest in Peace Roy Scheider and Jonathan Brandis)
By Ollie at 4:16 AM ON 01/27/10
I tell you what, sci fi fans are so negative about everything. Is it that most of you are just miserable?
By Kar at 12:45 PM ON 01/27/10
Don't forget to add zombies! Or maybe the equivalent of Reavers.
By Gozer at 2:18 PM ON 01/27/10
Ollie: "I tell you what, sci fi fans are so negative about everything. Is it that most of you are just miserable?"
It's a lack of sex (or never having it in the first place). Seriously, some of these folks are a Star Trek and Avatar sequel away from strapping dynamite to their chests.
By crimsonblack at 5:08 PM ON 01/28/10
for Lrdbowler:
Deepstar Six was not a rip-off of Leviathon. Both movies were released the same year (1989) by two different studios - similar to the year Valcano and Dante's Peak in 1997 were released. One studio finds out about a project and another studio does one too.
This underwater movie would like be "Outland" only under water. Saddle up the "seahorse" and let's ride! Yeehaw!
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crimsonblack:
for Lrdbowler: Deepstar Six was not a rip-off of Leviathon. Both movies were released the same year (1989) by two...More »