Stanislaw Lem’s novella The Inquest of Pilot Pirx might be heading to the big screen, joining other adaptations of his work including two films based on his novel, Solaris.
Variety broke the news that Children of Time author Adrian Tchaikovsky has penned a film adaptation for Lem’s novella, with production houses Nafta Films and Film and Music Entertainment (FAME) backing the project.
According to Variety, “the English-language film tells the story of Commander Pirx who leads a small crew of half androids and half humans on a rescue mission into space. None of them know which is which and Pirx’s secret task is to figure out whether the androids are truly superior to humans. Events turn dangerous when the mission is disrupted by an unknown saboteur.”
Sam Taylor of FAME told Variety in a statement that “we are over the moon to team up with Esko Rips [of Nafta Films] and Nafta and bring the combined vision of science fiction’s two most brilliant authors to the big screen. Both writers are my personal heroes and the deep theme of artificial intelligence set within an epic galactic setting will make the film both timely and timeless.”
Rips added, “Nafta Films prides itself on our story-first approach to filmmaking and could not be more thrilled to bring to life this thought-provoking tale by one of the greatest science-fiction writers of all time. Sam Taylor and the FAME team are the perfect partners with whom to bring this intelligent and dynamic story to life.”
The project is still in its early days, so there’s no news yet on who will direct, what actors will be on the call sheet, or if/when the project will go into production.
