Article by Jonny Bunning
Hardware and Dust Devil‘s Richard Stanley attended the Belgian Premiere of Lost Soul (review), the documentary about his doomed attempt at making The Island of Dr. Moreau for New Line Cinema back in 1994/95.
During the post screening Q&A he divulged some interesting information on future projects.
The Island of Dr. Moreau: The reception of the doc has put The Island of Dr. Moreau back in pre-production. In two or three years the whole thing will happen again, he said. Since January this year he has completed a new draft of the movie and has also been approached by Humanoids, a French comic company, to adapt the screenplay into a three book graphic novel! This will be hitting shelves next year.
Stanley is now more optimistic in bringing his vision to the screen citing Guardians of the Galaxy the Apes movies as paving the way for dogs with machine guns.
A “R” or “X” rating might be unlikely to attain, but at least the graphic novel will be unrated.
Hardware 2: The script was written the year after Hardware and is something he would like to revisit as advances toward drone soldiers are very timely in the real world. Projects such as DARPA developing robotic dogs and other creatures seem to have caught his attention, and he foresees these beast patrolling hostile zones. Hardware, along with his other film Dust Devil, currently belong to Disney after they took control of the Miramax catalogue. Working with the mouse seems unlikely so a non-direct sequel might be the only option available.
The Colour Out Of Space: Stanley is also set to make the old ones terrifying again for a younger generation. First announced at Fantasia Festival’s Frontiere’s market in 2013 was H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out Of Space, which will be made by Elijah Wood’s SpectreVision. He wants to take the source material and make it scary again, not cute and funny as most translations to screen. He has had talks with Bruce Spaulding Fuller who might be doing the main creatures using a combination of physical and visual effects. Shooting is set to go ahead at the beginning of next year.
The Gardner family move to a remote country locale to leave the hustle of the 21st century. All is well until a meteorite crashes into their front yard. Rapidly the curious qualities of this mysterious visitor from the stars starts to infect the properties of space and time around them. Overnight the water turns brackish containing an oily rainbow sheen. The crops ripen early and new forms of flora sprout from nowhere. Most disturbingly the members of the Gardner family are changing too! Whatever is contaminating their farm is mercilessly transforming them into the living manifestation of their darkest fears.
