As Burt Bacharach once sang, what the world needs now is love, sweet love. But what if there were no love on the planet, except for artificially generated emotion? That’s the basic concept behind Ecstasia, a new, speculative drama that Wayne Kramer has come aboard to direct for Relativity Media.
Kramer, who most notably made The Cooler, was all set to turn Sylvester Stallone into an assassin in Headshot, but he dropped out of directing that and now Ecstasia is looking like his next pic.
The plot is set in an alternate future, on an Earth where love has effectively gone the way of the dodo. But there’s still a chance for couples to forge a link – chips implanted in the brain can be stimulated to create feelings knows as “commitment.” But the cost of keeping the emotions maintained is high, and if you run out of dosh, you’re forced into “dissolution” which means no more lurve connection.
Our heroes are a couple who are 10 days away from defaulting on their payments, and are desperately looking to find new finances to keep their love alive.
Given that Andrew Niccol is busy putting the finishing post-production touches to his own alternate reality, near-future tale of money and technology influencing life and love, In Time, we could be looking at a trend here…