Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski has reopened discussion of his shelved take on a reimagining of Forbidden Planet, which had James Cameron on board to direct, who co-wrote the script before he moved to his “Avatar” project.
The original science fiction film, in part inspired by William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. starring Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis, directed by Fred M. Wilcox, was released by MGM in 1956, and is still regarded today as a groundbreaking, much loved production.
Quite aside from inspiring many an SF film and TV shows that followed it, Forbidden Planet is perhaps most famous for the debut Robby the Robot, a creation who has had cameos in many TV and film productions since, including Columbo, Lost in Space, Mork and Mindy, and Wonder Woman, although often not by his original name.
In Forbidden Planet, a starship crew travels to a distant planet’s colony to investigate its silence. Once on Altair 4, they discover two survivors – and a dark secret.
Straczynski’s script is reportedly a prequel: the story of what really happened with the Bellerophon, the first ship to reach home world of the mysterious Krell civilisation, with Dr. Edward Morbius on board.
Writing on X, J. Michael Straczynski commented “It’s maddening that right now, just sitting on a shelf at Warners, is a really solid screenplay for a Forbidden Planet movie, written by me, from a story by me and James Freaking Cameron. It’s production-ready, you can just drop it on the stage and shoot it.”
Reviving the production, he noted separately, was in Warners hands. “They own the script and the underlying rights.”
Back in 2018, JMS reported a “major production company” was looking to revive the project, which would have been loyal to the original story but also take it in new directions. Sadly, it seems, that overture to IP owners Warners came to nothing.
“It’s one of the best scripts I’ve ever written,” he stated in 2019, “in large measure because of Jim’s influence and constantly challenging me to go beyond where I thought I could go.”
JMS comments prompted others to mention other lost scripts, among them Harlan Ellison’s take on Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, published in 1987 in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and then in 1994 as a book, titled I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, illustrated by Mark Zug. Dubbed “the greatest science fiction movie never made,” the script was written in the late 1970s, but floundered because of supposed high production costs and other assorted difficulties, explained in an introduction by the late writer.
Although JMS take on Forbidden Planet may never see the light of day, there’s plenty of art out there to enjoy, inspired by, or reworking the original film. Concept artist Krist Miha, for example, created an amazing set of concepts, as his graduation project at Syn Studio, which you can check out here on Art Station.
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• Forbidden Planet – The Movie Facebook Group
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• Babylon 5: The Road Home is available to stream on Prime (Affiliate Link)
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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Interesting news – one of my favourite, perhaps *the* favourite of the sci-fi films I’ve seen.
Like a lot of fans, I’m doubtful that a prequel /remake is a good idea considering how good the origin is, but happy to be proven wrong – there are so many underlying concepts hinted at in the film that would be interesting to expand upon.
Ravi