Filmmakers have been trying to figure out how to bring Isaac Asimov’s epic Foundation trilogy to the big scree for three decades with little success. But now Roland Emmerich, the latest helmer to be attached to the project thinks he has the answer.
In an interview with MTV Movie Blogs, the director of Independence Day and 2012 stated that he was going to use the same motion capture-driven computer generated animation that James Cameron used to bring the alien Na’Vi to life in Avatar to life. “It has to be done all CG because I would not know how to shoot this thing in real.”
Having actually read Asimov’s series, which retells the fall of the Roman Empire as the demise of a galaxy-spanning Empire, Emmerich’s quote caught me by surprised. Unlike Avatar, Asimov’s Foundation series takes place in a galaxy where humans are the only sentient life. There are no aliens who may be vaguely humanoid but need to be realized through computer animation, so I am perplexed as why he feels the need to go this way. Surely he could shoot live actors in front of green screens and then add Trantor, Terminus and the other fantastic worlds of Asimov’s series in during post-production?
Emmerich is expecting to receive the latest draft of the script from screenwriter Robert Rodat today. Rodat, who scripted Saving Private Ryan for Steven Spielberg and the upcoming Warcraft for Sam Raimi, worked with Emmerich previously on 2000’s The Patriot. The film has not been given a greenlight yet from the studio.
