Fox have found a director for Heinlein’s classic sci-fi novel THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS in Bryan Singer, of the X-Men franchise fame.
60s sci-fi literature is a common and reliable source for mining scripts, with Philip K. Dick being the most prominent figure (BLADERUNNER, MINORITY REPORT, A SCANNER DARKLY).
Heinlein is widely accepted as a champion of defining intelligent sci-fi, and his film credits include the satirical STARSHIP TROOPERS and the recent PREDESTINATION. This particular novel deals with the distinction between terrestrials and “loonies” – political opposition figures, criminals, and general ‘undesirables’ exiled to a moon colony. As you can probably guess, this results in tensions between the Earth and its moon, and Heinlein uses this to discuss ideas of class, libertarianism, and revolution. As is common with this avenue of science-fiction, the author is obviously thinly disguising current social commentary in the foreign. There is also the familiar appearance of an AI developing human qualities, for those fans of Hal or the Replicants.
Whether or not this will be intelligently communicated on film under Singer’s direction is to be seen. We’ll most likely be delivered a decently exciting action flick with a boiling down of any political and philosophical elements (rather like Oblivion did to Moon, only to a larger degree). This project is titled UPRISING. Its titular spicing up is perhaps telling of how this will pan out.
