Droid uprising in view for the director who can't stay away from sci-fi too long...

Steven Spielberg is to return to the subject of artificial intelligence with Robocalypse, an adaptation of a novel by Daniel H. Wilson which was optioned real quick (it's not going on sale until June 7th next year). The theme of the book is humanity coping with an android uprising, which seems to cross halfway between I, Robot (the ad-strewn Will Smith film, not the Asimov novel) and any number of zombie movies.

Drew Goddard is scripting the adaptation. Goddard's previous work includes Buffy & Angel, Lost, and Cloverfield. So it's heavy-hitters all round for what, on the face of it, sounds like a fascinating and presumably expensive sci-fi movie, green-lit in a climate where such things rarely happen below Spielberg/Jackson level.

Spielberg's previous take on cybernetics was in his years-long collaboration with Stanley Kubrick on A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001), a quirkier and more esoteric outing, I'm guessing, than Robopocalypse (damn, that's going to be hard to learn to type) will prove.

Some directors do 'one for the money and one for the show', whereas Spielberg splits his film-making between ethical excursions such as Schindler's List, Amistad et al and output that studios feel far safer about - but which, I suspect, Spielberg enjoys equally. His roster of VFX-laden sci-fi to date include Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977), E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), its sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005). So a Spielberg sci-fi movie is always exciting because none of them are 'gigs' for him, even those that divide audiences such as War Of The Worlds.

Robopocalypse (I'm getting better at it already) will begin principal photography immediately after Tintin and War Horse are out of the stable.

Deadline

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