Hot on the news that HBO is adapting Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, HBO has announced that Christopher Nolan is also penning a television series based on the 1973 “classic” film Westworld.

For those of you too young to have seen this in the grand age of VHS (or younger still to have seen it in the theatres), Westworld tells the story of a futuristic theme-park where the robots go haywire and start killing the guests. Basically Jurassic Park with robots instead of dinosaurs, which is not surprising since it was both written and directed by Michael Crichton. While the film itself is rather haphazard outside of Yul Brynner’s masterfully sinister Gunslinger, it did feature some groundbreaking special effects, spawned a 1976 sequel, a short lived 1980s CBS television show and set the stage for later classics like Terminator. It’s a look into the beginning of our paranoia of artificial intelligence, computer viruses and robots run amok.

There are some “big names” attached, including He Who Destroyed Star Trek J.J. Abrams, Interstellar Jonathan Nolan and Karate Kid Jerry Weintraub. The cast looks good too:

The announced cast includes Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Miranda Otto, Rodrigo Santoro, Shannon Woodward, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Angela Sarafyan, Simon Quarterman…

While this could be a lot of fun, I’m not sure that the conceit can be extended into a series. Given the Nolans’ ability to spin some great ideas into good movies, if anyone has a shot at making it succeed it’s them.

HBO Orders “Westworld” to Series – Slice of SciFi

MS