Mixed news here for science fiction fans. On one hand, the long-mooted and long-stalled Forbidden Planet remake is finally getting off the ground, and we all know how much geeks fear remakes. On the other hand, it's being scripted by J. Michael Straczynski, and that's cause for hope.
Why? Well, first of all because Straczynski knows his sci-fi. He was the creator of Babylon 5 (no Babylon 5, no Battlestar remake, people - and hey! That remake worked) and has written some very good sci-fi comics and the series Jeremiah to boot. Secondly, he just wrote an excellent script for Clint Eastwood's Changeling, so much so that Eastwood reportedly pretty much shot the first draft, which is unheard of.
Now he's redrafting the classic Forbidden Planet, originally released in 1956 and starring Leslie Nielsen before he started taking the mickey. It's a sci-fi version of Shakespeare's The Tempest, wherein a group of astronauts are sent to check on a science colony on a faraway planet, but discover only one scientist and his daughter there, along with their Robby the Robot and some alien complications from the id.
The remake's been wandering around for years - it's now happening at Warners, but before that was at New Line and DreamWorks. James Cameron and David Twohy have both previously been attached.
Perhaps it will actually go before the cameras this time - but in any case Straczynski also has Paul Greengrass' They Marched Into Sunlight lined up, and Ron Howard's upcoming The Flickering Light and Lensman, so we guess Spaced was wrong: Babylon 5 wasn't a big pile of shit after all.