Bryan Singer to Direct Film Based on Sci-Fi Novel THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS
Bryan Singer is set to direct a film that's not part of the X-Men franchise. The movie is set up at 20th Century Fox, and it's an adaptation of the classic sci-fi book by Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers) called The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
The film will be called Uprising, and the script for it will be written by Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim. The novel was written in 1966, and it centers on a lunar colony's revolt against rule from Earth. It won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel in 1967.
A big screen adaptation of this movie has been attempted two times already. The first was set up at DreamWorks with a script by Pirates of the Caribbean scribes Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, and the second try was set up at Phoenix Pictures with Harry Potter producer David Heyman attached to help develop it. Obviously, neither of them went through.
Singer is a talented director who has made some great films in his career. (Jack and the Giant Slayer was not one of them.) This seems like a project that would fit his storytelling and film style perfectly, though. I hope he gives the film that retro 1960s vibe.
Here's a full description of the book:
Robert A. Heinlein was the most influential science fiction writer of his era, an influence so large that, as Samuel R. Delany notes, "modern critics attempting to wrestle with that influence find themselves dealing with an object rather like the sky or an ocean." He won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, a record that still stands. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was the last of these Hugo-winning novels, and it is widely considered his finest work.
It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of the former Lunar penal colony against the Lunar Authority that controls it from Earth. It is the tale of the disparate people--a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic--who become the rebel movement's leaders. And it is the story of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to this inner circle, and who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of the high points of modern science fiction, a novel bursting with politics, humanity, passion, innovative technical speculation, and a firm belief in the pursuit of human freedom.
Source: THR