This weekend Hero Complex in association with The Los Angeles Times hosted the third annual Hero Complex Film Festival.  Highlights to which included a screening of Shaun of the Dead with Edgar Wright, Wall-E with director Andrew Stanton and A Clockwork Orange with star Malcolm McDowell.

I was on hand Saturday for the fest at a midday screening of Paul Verhoeven’s seminal satirical ultraviolent masterpiece RoboCop. Star Peter Weller appeared after the screening for a lengthy and animated Q&A wherein he discussed prepping for RoboCop, learning to appreciate the satirical bend of the film and his thoughts on a hypothetical remake, among many other topics of conversation.  For highlights from the Q&A, hit the jump.

Opening next weekend is writer-director George Nolfi’s romance/thriller The Adjustment Bureau. Based on the short story Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick, the film centers on the apparently forbidden relationship between politician David Norris (Matt Damon) and Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt).  As the story goes, the two are kept apart by a mysterious team of adjusters who claim it’s in everyone’s best interest if they go their separate ways.  Playing members of the Adjustment Bureau are Terence Stamp, John Slattery and Anthony Mackie.  For more on the film, here are 7 clips.

Anyhow, I recently got to do a phone interview with Nolfi and we talked about what it was like to make his first feature, getting his cast, working with the studio, the test screening process, balancing the love story in a sci-fi setting, working with cinematographer John Toll, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to either read or listen to the interview:

The Green Hornet director Michel Gondry’s next movie will be an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1966 science fiction novel, Ubik. The screenplay will remain loyal to Dick’s original text.

This will be the second attempt by a French filmmaker to adapt Dick’s famed work. In 1974, Jean-Pierre Gorin commissioned the writer to adapt his own novel to a screenplay. The movie never got made but Dick’s labor didn’t go entirely to waste – it was instead published as Ubik: The Screenplay.

Highly respected in France, Philip K. Dick is perhaps one of the most popular American sci-fi writers in the world – and Hollywood. Hit the jump to find out which classic movies were inspired by his works.

In the long line of 80s-films-that-probably-have-no-reason-to-be-remade is Len Wiseman’s (Live Free or Die Hard) update on the Philip K. Dick short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”, better known as Total Recall.  According to Variety, Sony has offered the lead role to none other than Colin Farrell (In Bruges), suggesting Wiseman and the studio are planning a decidedly different take on Dick’s original concept.  Farrell has been rumored for the role for a few weeks now, along with Tom Hardy (Inception) and Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds).  Farrell previously appeared in Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report which was based on the Philip K. Dick story “The Minority Report”.

As most of you probably know, the original Total Recall starred a pre-Terminator 2 Ah-nold Schwarzenegger, along with a very sexy Sharon Stone, and was directed by Paul Verhoeven as only Paul Verhoeven can direct – i.e., lots of violence, sex and gore. The 1990 film was a critical and box office success, and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (Special Achievement Award).

Despite the fact that Ridley Scott has an almost unfathomable amount of potential film projects in his future, he’s taking the time to produce a project for BBC. Deadline reports the prolific director is behind a 4-hour miniseries based on Philip K. Dick’s Hugo Award winning novel The Man in the High Castle. The story takes place a science fiction alternate history, depicting a world in which the Axis powers, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, triumphed over the Allies in the Second World War. Some 20 years after that loss, the United States and much of the world has now been split between Japan and Germany, the major hegemonic states. But the tension between these two powers is mounting, and this stress is playing out in the western U.S.

This won’t be the first time Scott has adapted Dick’s work into a visual medium since one of his best films, Blade Runner, was based on the author’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dick’s science fiction tales have not only been the most plentiful, but seemingly most successful works to make the jump from page to screen. From Minority Report to Total Recall, the author crafts intricate and thought-provoking stories with riveting social commentary and philosophy riddled throughout. It’ll be interesting to spend four hours in one of his worlds with this miniseries. Sound good?

Director Len Wiseman (Underworld) is in final negotiations to helm a remake of the 1990 sci-fi flick Total Recall.  Based off the Philip K. Dick short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”, the original film was directed by Paul Verhoeven and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The first half of the movie is a fantastic mind-bender, but once Schwarzenegger gets to Mars, it ditches the mindgames and becomes a B-action movie mixed with the delightfully bizarre (Kuato!).

Producer Matt Tolmach said in the press release, “Len has an incredible love of the genre and a great gift for action.  He’ll bring a contemporary feel to the film while taking care with everything we love about Philip K. Dick’s original story.”  Hit the jump for the press release and my thoughts on the announcement.

Universal has released the first trailer for director George Nolfi’s thriller The Adjustment Bureau.  While this might be Nolfi’s first time in the director’s chair, he’s written Oceans Twelve, Timeline, and The Bourne Ultimatum, so he clearly knows his way around a movie set and how to tell a story.

Starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Michael Kelly and Terence Stamp, The Adjustment Bureau is based on the Short Story “The Adjustment Team” by Philip K. Dick (Total Recall, Minority Report, Blade Runner).  The film is about whether or not we control our destiny, or do unseen forces manipulate us.

If you’re a fan of sci-fi, Matt Damon, or Philip K. Dick, you’re going to like the look of this trailer.  Hit the jump to take a look:

Universal has released the first images from writer/director George Nolfi’s The Adjustment Bureau.  The movie is based on the short story The Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick and it stars Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Michael Kelly and Terence Stamp.  Here’s the short synopsis:

Do we control our destiny, or do unseen forces manipulate us? Matt Damon stars in the thriller The Adjustment Bureau as a man who glimpses the future Fate has planned for him and realizes he wants something else. To get it, he must pursue the only woman he’s ever loved across, under and through the streets of modern-day New York.

So what do you get when you mix Matt Damon and Philip K. Dick?  A lot of excited sci-fi fans…like me!  Hit the jump for a more detailed synopsis and two images in high resolution.  The Adjustment Bureau gets released July 30, 2010.

While some of you might have thought I was done with “Seven Days with Producer Neal Moritz,” trust me, I’m just getting warmed up.  Last week I posted what he said about R.I.P.D., Fast and the Furious 5/6 and his remake of Highlander, and tonight’s it’s an update on Shane Black’s Doc Savage, his remake of Total Recall, and what’s up with Flash Gordon.

The quick update is he’s waiting on scripts for all three projects but says he’s about to get Doc Savage and Total Recall.  He went on to say that Shane Black did some work on the Battle: Los Angeles script and while he’s tried to attach him to many projects, it was his love for Doc Savage that finally reeled him in.

And regarding the remake of Total Recall, Moritz said Kurt Wimmer is writing the script and it’s going to be closer to the Philip K. Dick story, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, than a remake of the Schwarzenegger movie.  He also says they’re not going to Mars but I forgot to ask  if Quato is in the movie.  I hope he is.  Hit the jump for his exact quotes:

George Nolfi’s upcoming “The Adjustment Bureau” has added another cast member with “The Hurt Locker” star Anthony Mackie joining Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in the sci-fi thriller.  Adapted from a Philip K. Dick short-story, “Bureau” centers on a smooth-talking congressman whose political future is thrown in doubt by the arrival of a mysterious ballerina in his life.  It is common sense to avoid mysterious ballerinas.

Mackie is a great addition to this cast and when you consider that Nolfi is writing and directing (Nolfi wrote “The Bourne Ultimatum”, one of the best action films of the last decade), things are really coming together for a chance at the first good Philip K. Dick adaptation since “Minority Report” (or “Total Recall” if you’re being less charitable). [Variety]