David Goyer and Josh Friedman Adapting Isaac Asimov's Foundation for TV

I agree - I would love to see a film, but I can't imagine how it'd work.

What's even more concerning is if you look at what Goyer & Friedman have done in the past, it's almost exclusively comic book and action movie stuff (and that track record is pretty spotty).

My expectations are low, unfortunately.

And, worse, it keeps changing main characters. No star actors. You can't even have an ensemble cast, the protagonists constantly change as the story progresses.

I'm trying to figure whether they would start with the main trilogy or the prequels.

The trilogy has super frequent cast changes. They might be able to do a season per book, but even then some of the books go through way too many characters to be comfortable for a format like that. Maybe do like a three-part episode per section in the books, in a sort of mini-miniseries? That condenses the dialog-heaviness and allows for some emphasis on the "action", although it would still be very cerebral compared to most series these days.

If they start with the prequels, they'd have a more stable cast. Not to mention, the prequels have a lot more action-y scenes and are a bit more fast-paced. The main downside is that they might lose audience if they go through the prequels and then do the main trilogy; many people would find the later seasons excessively boring, I think.

So I dunno. I can see ways where it might work, but it would have to be well-executed and planned out thoroughly. I think I'm going to try to be hesitantly optimistic, haha. We'll see what happens.

I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly adapt that tale and have it work.

I would love to be wrong though.

As I recall, violence was often threatened but avoided. They might make plenty of tension that way.

There was a point where the old empire was advancing on the Foundation only to have their general recalled at the moment of total triumph to prevent the general from taking over power after returning victorious. Also the expansion phase against the barbarian kingdoms wasn't completely bloodless.

But the wars and conquests were never really explicit, more described as a historian would describe it as it would happen in the Roman Empire.

Foundation and Empire has two wars in it so there would be plenty of potential for explosions. The actual fighting isn't described much in the book, but I doubt that a TV adaptation would treat it the same way.

Probably. I thought the BBC Radio plays did a reasonable job:

https://archive.org/details/IsaacAsimov-TheFoundationTrilogy

Whatever they create, it's something a little bit different than the source material, but will hopefully give a flavor of it.

The hardest part of the Foundation series is it's epic scope, in particular because it would be nice to integrate parts of the Robot series as well. But the essential message for me was humanity as his massive sprawling creature, slowly evolving across millennia.

Chris and Jonathan Nolan have their fair share of writing gaffs, but its mostly on the dialogue front. Both are brilliant worldbuilders, but don't tell me that "For you" is Oscar-tier dialogue.

And before you ask, I am a hothead.

And SyFy. There is very little that comes out of them that is even watchable.

His lifetime estimated global box office gross in a writing capacity is $4.8B[0]. I think "hack" may be how you see him, but the world sees otherwise. Also, he didn't credit himself as TDK's writer (screen for Begins, story for the others), the studio did. And if you think that's an easy feat, you're sorely mistaken. It's a hell of a lot easier to write an entire screenplay and not get credited than it is to not write on a project and get credited. That's why arbitration is such a big deal for professional screenwriters.

Further, Josh Friedman is a dyed in the wool sci-fi geek, hilarious guy, and great writer. I have a lot more faith than you that this might work.

Also, Goyer wrote Dark City, a sci-fi classic that tragically slipped under the radar.

Full disclosure: I work in the industry and know Josh and know a ton of people that have worked with David, but I've only met him in passing.

[0] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Writer&id=da...

I actually like I, Robot even if it has nothing to do with the books at all. It's a decent action sci-fi movie.

I'm more worried it might be like Ender's Game and remove all substance from it.

> Did everyone already forget how hollywoodization of "I, Robot" turned out?

It didn't happen. An almost completely unrelated work, done almost completely without any intention of connection, got the title and a couple org/character names and other window dressing from Asimov's work added to it.

Not at all a guide to how a project setting out to adapt Asimov's work would end up. Sure, the latter might end up badly, but the former is an unrelated thing that provides no guidance.

Mule never know what these Hollywood types try next.