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How quickly Hollywood forgets.

Just last month Scott Derrickson’s remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still actually made the box-office stand still and grossed a mere $80 million.  That’s fantastic bank for a small film about a quirky, pregnant teenager or an Indian teenager winning millions on a game show, but for a high profile sci-fi remake with big name stars it only barely covers the production costs.  As punishment for his apparent mishandling of the science fiction classic, Derrickson has been handed the directorial keys to a more modern science fiction epic.

Per Variety, Derrickson has signed to direct Hyperion Cantos based on the novels by Dan Simmons.  The Warner Bros. film will cover the events of the first two books in Simmons’ acclaimed and award-winning four book series which includes Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion.  The plot finds humanity on the edge of extinction due both to war and hubris, with their only hope resting in the journey of seven pilgrims to the planet Hyperion.  There they will face unsolved riddles, death, betrayal, and an unstoppable and deadly entity known as The Shrike.

Derrickson is an amiable guy, and the deck was admittedly stacked against him from the start when he signed on to remake TDTESS with Keanu Reeves, so there’s still hope for Hyperion Cantos.  It’s unfortunate that WB is cramming two books into one film though.  Both novels are long and dense so a substantial amount of plot and character will have to be dropped.  So really, why don’t they just make Simmons’ masterful The Hollow Man into a movie instead?

Have you read the Hyperion books?