Earlier, we reported on a planned adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo that would be set in the distant future, so it only makes sense that we follow that up with news of a Heart of Darkness adaptation set on outer space.
Peter Cornwell, who helmed the 2009 supernatural thriller The Haunting in Connecticut, has been tapped by Radar Pictures to direct a sci-fi take on Joseph Conrad’s classic novella as a spacebound sci-fi pic. Variety says the film, titled Into Darkness, will work from a screenplay by Tony Giglio and Branden Morgan that loosely follows Conrad’s story about a ship’s captain on a journey through enemy territories to return a shadowy figure (probably named Kurtz) to civilization.
The most famous rendition of Conrad’s 1902 tale belongs to Francis Ford Coppola, whose Apocalypse Now put Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando through the paces and nearly killed all three men in the process. If you’ve never seen Fax Bahr’s Heart of Darkness, a making-of documentary surrounding Apocalypse that details the horrors of Coppola’s 1976 shoot, you now have homework for the July 4 weekend.
While we all hope Cornwell’s sci-fi Darkness aspires to the level of Coppola’s masterpiece, my enthusiasm for the project is tempered by the fact that Giglio’s screenwriting credits include not only Death Race 2, but also Death Race 3. Granted, everyone has to start somewhere, so let’s hope that Darkness is the project that puts him over the top.
