Sci-Fi Storm

It appears that the Guillermo del Toro-led remake of 1966’s sci-fi classic Fantastic Voyage is getting pushed back about a year, to allow time for del Toro to deal with the release of The Shape of Water, which is coming out December 8th in time for Oscar season.

Deadline reports that Fox and Lightstorm Entertainment are willing to push full development of the film until next Spring, to allow del Toro to be able to fully concentrate on the development before they start spending money on set production, etc. Given the original timeline was to start dull production in the Spring for a late 2019 release, but this would probably push filming until the Fall, and a release sometime in 2020.

This is a movie we’d really like to see done again (although we are often against remakes), but it has been over a DECADE that James Cameron has been trying to get a new adaptation of Fantastic Voyage off the ground – we first reported about it in 2002 – and though directors have come and gone over the years, Cameron apparently still wants it to happen. The latest report by THR is that Guillermo del Toro, who is apparently available with Pacific Rim 2 not likely to get made any time soon, in talks to take this project over. This would reteam del Toro with David Goyer, who wrote the treatment for the project and wrote Blade 2 for del Toro.

The original movie, written by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby (and novelized by Isaac Asimov) was set during the Cold War, and follows the adventure of a group of doctors and crew who are shrunk down to microscopic size in a specially built submarine and injected into the body of an important scientist who was critically injured in an assassination attempt while attempting to defect to the U.S., hoping to repair damage to his brain from the inside to save his life. Why? Because while both the U.S. and Soviet Union have this miniaturization technology, it only lasts a short amount of time – but this scientist knows how to make it last indefinitely, and the military implications are significant.

We haven’t heard anything in a while since Paul Greengrass left the project, but James Cameron’s Fantastic Voyage remake finally has a new director: Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum). And surprise! It’s going to be 3D…it’s been about nine years since Cameron got his hands on the project…