Irrational Games’ co-founder and BioShock creator Ken Levine is taking a short break from video games to make the jump to Hollywood. His first screenplay? The Hollywood remake of the 1976 cult classic science fiction film Logan’s Run.
Logan’s Run tackles the issue of population control as humans living in a utopia are exterminated at the age of 30 in a celebration known as passing into “Carrousel” and being “renewed.” Of course, some people simply don’t want to go to Carrousel, so a squad of police known as Sandmen hunt down these Runners and execute them.
One Sandman, known as Logan 5, stumbles across the conspiracy and is set to be “renewed” four years early. He becomes a Runner himself and must allude his former cohorts.
It’s an excellent pre-Star Wars sci-fi film with some great ideas, but it’s ultimately held back by low production values and a cheesy screenplay. Ken Levine has described the screenplay as a “passion project,” and he has no doubt been influenced by Logan’s Run given that both BioShock and BioShock Infinite also take place within utopian cities gone bad.
A remake has been in the works since 1994, and nothing has materialized in that time. Most recent rumors pointed to Ryan Gosling starring as Logan 5, and it would reunite him with Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn. However, Gosling dropped from the project in October 2012, so unless it picks up another star, seeing Levine’s screenplay in action on film is still a long shot.
Levine will continue at Irrational Games in the meantime while writing.
Remakes are all the rage in Hollywood these days, so yet another new lifeless sci-fi remake of a film I love does not sound like an interesting proposition. With Levine being attached though, it could become something I wouldn’t mind paying to see. If it ever gets made, that is.
Source: Deadline