Dimension Films has confirmed that its Short Circuit remake is moving right along.
The film, which retells the story of a rogue government robot that captures the heart of a human girl, has been in the planning phases over at Dimension, with the only names attached being the director Tim Hill, who was brought on about 9 months ago, and producer David Foster, who helmed the original.
Short Circuit had previously gone into development with director Steve Carr and writer Dan Milano attached, but after two years of stalled development, they decided to start fresh.
Matt Lieberman, an untested scribe from the Disney writing program, was recently hired to pen a brand new screenplay, of which little is so far known. Hill did give away some details, however, in a recent interview with The LA Times.
Primarily, the film will have to deal with changes in the way people perceive robots and military applications of robots since the first film over 25 years ago. The original film featured a ‘Johnny 5’ that was designed by the military, but who would have made an incredibly inefficient tool of war. He was slow, non-threatening looking, and featured a mass of exposed wires and other important bits, which would serve as great weak-points for any opposition.
The new Johnny 5 will be designed to look more like he could actually be a military ‘bot. Hill says that he liked the original design, “But I think it has to be closer to what modern design actually is. There are computer models and labs developing real machines like this. We want to do something like that.”
“You’ve got to find the balance between something fierce and something endearing,” he continued. “The original was cute. But no one was threatened by it.”
Hill went on to mention that the female lead, originally played by Ally Sheedy, will this time be a child or a teenager, rather than an adult, a change which will perhaps lessen the romantic vibes, which, looking back, are a bit creepy in the original.
The Short Circuit reboot is currently in development, and no production or release dates have yet been announced.
