Time Travel is the New Pregancy Comedy in Hollywood

With the Science Channel running a predictably addictive marathon of the monumental PBS series Cosmos featuring Carl Sagan, it seemed an appropriate time to ask the musical question: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Time travel, I suspect, hasn't been this hot since H.G. Wells coined the phrase back in 1895. There are currently two films set to go into production, much the way two asteroids-are-headed-for-Earth movies popped up at the same time ten years ago and the way we've had too many pregnancy movies in the past year (with more of those buns in the oven). I think the timing owes a little bit to The Jumper, which made good money despite stalling shortly after it introduced its heady concept. And now, James Mangold, director of Walk the Line and 3:10 to Yuma, and Spike Lee both have quantum physics on the brain. Mangold will work from a script by David Auburn for a thriller called The Archive. Auburn's previous dramas, Proof and The Lake House, dealt with geometry and a form of time travel, respectively, so he's a good fit here. As for Lee, he's taking on Time Traveler: A Scientists’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality, a memoir by theoretical physicist Ronald Mallett. Mallett, once upon a time, tried to build a time machine to reverse the death of his father, who was felled by a heart attack when Mallett was only ten. That sounds pretty fascinating to me. And Spike is no stranger to the subject, having previously been linked to the time travel pic Selling Time. Time travel in the movies has not often been handled well. Both Frequency and an adaptation of the original H.G. Wells novel met with commercial resistance, and for good reason. Frequency was better, the idea was strong, but it kind of trailed off as the story outpaced the science. I would hold up Back to the Future, Samurai Jack, The Terminator series and Somewhere in Time as examples of time travel done right, primarily because it was more about the why of time travel than the how. But with this newfound love of time travel, one questions remains: Why not just make a Dr. Who movie already?

Comments

[Jen]

I'd add the film "Happy Accidents" as another example of it done right... but unfortunately, despite Ebert & Roeper putting it on their Top 10 the year it came out, box-office wise it was overshadowed by the awful "Kate and Leopold." Still, find it if you can!

[Adrian]

Don't forget the two Bill and Ted movies, staring Keanu Reeves and George Carlin (RIP). Time travel inn a phonebooth.They get the "why" AND "how".

[Udochi]

When is the Spike Lee movie set for release? Does anybody know?