Disney’s reboot of The Black Hole has found a writer.
Prometheus co-writer Jon Spaihts has been tapped to write the film and, it’s hoped, kick the long in development project into a higher gear.
Joe Kosinski will direct the reboot.
Black Hole was the most expensive movie Disney ever made when it was released in 1979 with a cast that included Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, and Ernest Borgnine.
The original followed a group of space explorers aboard the USS Palomino who come across a lost ship, the USS Cygnus, hovering outside a black hole. Inside the Cygnus, the explorers meet a scientist commanding an army of faceless robots, who explains that his crew deserted him as he planned to go through the black hole. The explorers soon discover that the robots are the remnants of the former crew and that the scientist has no intention of letting them leave.
Disney put the remake into development in 2009.Travis Beacham was writing the script at the time, and Kosinski was working on the project while prepping the Tron reboot.
Among the signature pieces of the original movie were a threatening red robot named Maximillian as well as two kindlier robots named V.I.N.CENT and B.O.B.
It is unknown if those characters will return, but the new take, which restarts the project, has been described as being big idea — philosophical and somewhat dark in tone.
Spaihts also wrote the screenplay for The Darkest Hour, an alien-invasion thriller as well as the reboot of the Mummy franchise for Universal.
I personally have issues with the original film. It’s a movie which I didn’t care for when I first saw it, yet every time it’s on I am compelled to see it again and again and again.
If there was one good thing about the original movie is that it was beautiful to look at. That’s it. The story was absurd at best, and disturbing at its worst. Now we get word that a re-boot is being done. While I like Joe Kosinski as its director (I am one of those few that really enjoyed Tron: Legacy), I can only hope that the re-boot does a better job with the story.