Rebooting, revamping, and reimagining all seem to be the way of the movie world these days, and Disney is going to great lengths to make sure that they get in on the game. This December, the studio will be releasing the very long-awaited Tron: Legacy, a sequel to the groundbreaking cult-favorite Tron from the 80′s, and the film’s director, Joseph Kosinski, has already signed on for another Disney reboot: 1979′s The Black Hole.
That’s right, the mind-bending and oft-overlooked Black Hole, which has maintained a significant cult-following, is getting the ever popular reboot treatment, and Kosinski told MTV News that this film will stand all on its own:
“It won’t be a sequel like Tron,” he explained. “This one will be a reimagining. For me, it would be taking ideas and iconic elements that struck me as timeless and cool and preserving them while weaving a new story around them that’s a little more 2001.”
In the original film, Psycho star Anthony Perkins and a team of space explorers, complete with lovable robot V.I.N.C.E.N.T. discover the long-disappeared ship Cygnus on the edge of a black hole. Cygnus’s captain, Dr. Reinhardt seems inviting at first, but he and his more sinister robot companion Maximilian turn out to be way off their space-rockers.
Kosinski is currently outlining a script with Travis Beacham, writer of this year’s Clash of the Titans remake, and he spoke about some of the original film’s elements that he plans to keep (certain spoilers ahead for those that haven’t seen the brilliant original.)
“I saw Black Hole as a little kid,” said Kosinski. “What sticks out most is the robot Maximilian. The blades and the vicious killing of Anthony Perkins. That freaked me out and that’s definitely going to be an element that will be preserved. The design of the Cygnus ship is one of the most iconic spaceships ever put to film. From a conceptual point of view, we know so much more about black holes now, the crazy things that go on as you approach them due to the intense gravitational pull and the effects on time and space. All that could provide us with some really cool film if we embrace it in a hard science way.”
If the scripting is pulled off well, this could be the kind of intelligent, large-scale, and large-budget space film that sci-fi fans have been aching for, and judging from the footage we’ve seen coming out of Tron: Legacy, Kosinski definitely has the vision to deliver.
