Recently there’s been much speculation about what Christian Bale will be doing once the Dark Knight franchise ends next July.
Christopher Nolan, who saved Batman from the day-glo clutches of Joel Schumacher, will also be moving on from the batcave, and a report just surfaced of an interesting project he may be up for.
There have been plans at Warner Bros. for quite some time to make a new Twilight Zone movie, and as you’ve guessed by now, Nolan is one of the directors in the running, as well as Michael Bay (not a good idea, no matter what you think of his movies), Harry Potter’s David Yates, and Alfonso Cuaron.
But as Variety reports, unlike the ’83 version, this movie will be one story, with one director, so one of the four directors on this list will be the captain of the ship. It’s not clear if this will be an old episode expanded to feature length, but I’d be willing to bet it will be a new story in the classic Rod Serling vein.
As a long time fan of The Twilight Zone, I have mixed thoughts about this. There was an admirable attempt to bring the Twilight Zone back to TV in color in the ‘80’s, but I’ve always felt no one could do it better than Serling in glorious black and white.
The ’83 film was an interesting idea, taking four of the hottest directors of the day to make their versions of Zone classics. George Miller’s remake of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet was the best of the four, but the rest of them, directed by Joe Dante, John Landis, and Steven Spielberg, weren’t anything to write home about.
The Twilight Zone worked perfectly in a half hour format, and it’s hard to stretch a Serling style premise with a twist ending to feature length. And indeed, when The Twilight Zone did several hour long episodes, they didn’t work. Although these directors have the clout to make a movie in black and white, the way the Twilight Zone should be seen, you have the feeling it will be tough to get it shot in that format, and Warners will want it in color.
As the ’83 movie proved, getting the best talent together to make a Twilight Zone movie isn’t enough. It has to offer the right vibe and feel, and that’s not going to be easy to do modern day. But that’s not saying directors shouldn’t try their damnedest, and I hope down the road I’ll pleasantly surprised to find someone can do justice to the Zone in modern times.
