Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy is a pillar of the science-fiction community, and director Roland Emmerich is planning to model his three-picture adaptation of the tome after the biggest movie in the history of cinema.
MTV News has exclusively learned from Emmerich himself that "Foundation" will be a 3-D epic using technology similar to the CG motion-capture techniques used in "Avatar."
"The 'Avatar' technology applies to 'Foundation,' " Emmerich said. "It has to be done all CG because I would not know how to shoot this thing in real."
When asked if that meant 'Foundation' would be in 3-D and mo-cap, Emmerich replied, "Yes."
Probed even further, Emmerich said he's looking forward to a new challenge at this point in his career. "Probably now all big movies have to be 3-D," he said. "It's not only the effect of 3-D, ['Avatar' has] just shown that if you do a movie in 3-D, you can ask for more money and that's the trick. I think now everybody who does bigger movies has to shoot them in 3-D. I think there's no way around it. I was on the set of 'Avatar' and I saw how it worked and I really thought, 'That's the ultimate way of making movies.' "
After working to develop a story with Robert Rodat ("Saving Private Ryan"), Emmerich said he expects to receive a draft of the script before the end of the week. "Rumor has it on Friday I get the script," he said.
We'll have more to come soon on Emmerich's insights into his "Foundation" adaptation, including the adjustments necessary to shape Asimov's tales into a manageable big screen storyline and his wariness about the wrath of hardcore Asimov fans.
Have you read the book? What do you think of this idea of applying "Avatar" technology to the Asimov story?
