Ridley Scott Takes on Brave New World

Posted by Robin Ruinsky (robin@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 6, 2009

ridley-scott-1

It is back to the future for director Ridley Scott, who is developing a film based on the 1931 Aldous Huxley classic “Brave New World”. The film will star Leonardo DiCaprio. The project is in the early stages with “Apocalypto” screenwriter Farhad Safinia working to adapt Huxley’s novel.  Appian Way owns the rights to the novel and will produce along with DiCaprio and Scott.

The story takes place in the 26th Century where families no longer exist and children are produced in laboratories designed to fit into a world that is divided into castes. The novel was referred to quite a bit when In vitro fertilization techniques first became viable. The concept of “test tube” babies has often been associated with Brave New World’s sterile baby making environments where human beings have been removed from the process of procreation.

Huxley’s Brave New World is a society patterned on the Ford Motor Company assembly line. The product is a homogenized society restricted to a population of two billion world wide. It’s a peaceful society with no purpose other than to consume goods. A world where the concepts of family, love and romance are considered obscene and a danger to the peaceful social order.

If the film stays true to the book it follows the story of Bernard Marx. Marx is from a lower caste and is considered a social outcast. Marx becomes infatuated with Lenina, a woman from a higher level caste and this infatuation and his desire to rise above his station cause a multitude of complications.

The book will be a challenge to adapt and I would hope they don’t take the easy way out by trying to turn it into a story of a forbidden romance. It’s far more complex than that and the world of “Brave New World”  is about as unromantic as a story can get.

But I can see nervous studio executives pushing for a softer take and a happy ending. Can Ridley Scott pull it off? We’ll see  if and when the project comes to fruition.

Anyone out there have an opinion about the film potential of “Brave New World”?


Read more articles by Robin Ruinsky

« Previous Article | Next Article »

Related Topics:

Movie News, , ,

Related Reading:

Your Ad Here

Comment Policy: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Film School Rejects reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. We also reserve the right to modify any curse words in your comments and make you look like an idiot. Thank You!

  • MJK
    Marx was not lower caste, he was Alpha Plus.
  • I haven't read the book in a while. You're right Bernard is an Alpha Plus but I remember Bernard as having some characteristics of Epsilons who are bred to be short. Bernard is also seen as an outcast in the social order and not equal to Lenina.
    Thanks for correcting the caste info.
  • Jay DV
    Isn't Scott attached to a few other sci-fi projects? Forever War and the Alien prequel come to mind. He certainly stays busy in the genre for a guy who says sci-fi in cinema has been dead since Kubrick's 2001.
  • Brave New World is one of my favorite books ever. I'd be crushed if as noted in the article, the ending were to be changed or significant alterations were made to the plot. I couldn't think of a better duo than Ridley and Leo to helm this. I was excited about Akira, but this is way more exciting.
  • I may be wrong here but wasn't Bernard a "natural born" child and didn't really belong to any of the castes and his mother had him in secret, in an underdeveloped part of the world, at the instruction of his father, whom I won't reveal as it would spoil the story a bit to those unfamiliar.
  • The character you're thinking of is John the Savage whose mother has him in secret in a Savage Reservation. Bernard meets him and brings him to "civilization".
  • LeeAnna
    Glad to hear that this is being done, but like you, I too fear that they may end up changing the meaning of the book.

    I too agree that Bernard was Alpha Plus, but he didn't have all the characteristics because someone screwed up on his test tube if I'm not mistaken.
  • Yes, there's speculation that Bernard wasn't "cooked" correctly since he's short like an Epsilon.
    I just hope the book isn't turned into a star crossed romance between Bernard and Lenina.
    The really tragic figure is John the Savage.
  • Gemininja
    WHY IN THE HELLFUCK does Leo DiCrapprio have to been ruining, overexposed, or just plain in Inception and now Brave New World. Get somebody else. Get unknowns. Let somebody else make some millions. Too much.
blog comments powered by Disqus