The 1966 film Fantastic Voyage was a memorable sci-fi special effects extravaganza that was directed by Richard Fleischer and starred screen siren Raquel Welch. The story followed a team of scientists that along with a specially designed nuclear submarine, were shrunk using advanced miniaturization technology to journey inside the body of a fallen diplomat and repair a blood clot in the brain. Filmmaker James Cameron, has been working on a remake since 1997, and after the mind blowing success of Avatar and it’s 3d imagery, he and 20th Century Fox will be bringing a new version to the screen.
Check out the original trailer:
While the project has been in development for some time with filmmakers like Paul Greengrass, Darren Aronofsky, Timur Bekmambetov, Jonathan Mostow and Louis Leterrier all flirting with the remake, settling on a director has been a long process.
Now Fox and producer James Cameron have chosen who will direct what will be a 3D, CGI generated world of flowing blood cells and vital organs as a new team goes on a similar voyage. Shawn Levy who made the upcoming Robot boxing flick Real Steel starring Hugh Jackman, has been chosen to helm the next ‘Fantastic Voyage’. He has a track record of making successful big budget flicks, from the ‘Night at the Museum’ franchise, to ‘Cheaper By the Dozen’, and the recent Tina Fey–Steve Carell comedy ‘Date Night’.
The script was written by Shane Salerno of ‘Armageddon’ fame and is getting a fresh set of eyes to look at it with ‘Shutter Island’ scribe Laeta Kalogridis said to be doing some fine tuning. The original 1966 film was based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby, with Isaac Asimov writing the novelized version of the events that were later incorporated into the story. With today’s medical breakthroughs and understanding of the human body, the updating will benefit with scientific facts incorporated into the new story.
The original was set during the cold war with a defector in need of the medical help, however the remake will use a modern backdrop as the setting. In 1987, director Joe Dante reworked the story as a comedy called ‘Innerspace’ starring Dennis Quaid and Martin Short, which saw an ordinary working guy injected with a syringe containing a sub and a miniaturized man who were meant to be injected into someone else.
‘Fantastic Voyage’ is the sort of flick that lends itself to the 3D format and the impressive visuals that can be conjured with today’s eye popping photo-realistic effects to complete the illusion. Shawn Levy has a track record for engaging audiences and it’s thought that he will be able to balance style and substance with a story that is both highly far-fetched and totally fantastic.
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