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I, Robot is derived from a Jeff Vintar script called "Hardwired," an Agatha Christie inspired, stageplay-style murder mystery that features a human detective investigating a death, where all of his suspects are robots, computers, or holograms. The script was purchased by Disney in 1995 for Bryan Singer, then several years later Fox bought the rights for Alex Proyas and the script was transformed into a big budget studio film. After Fox acquired the rights to Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot," an anthology of nine stories penned in the 1940s, the film was re-envisioned as a prequel to a series of I, Robot films and was rewritten to incorporate many of Asimov's ideas.
Asimov also wrote several short stories on robots and four robot novels: "The Caves of Steel" (in development at Universal), "The Naked Sun," "The Robots of Dawn" and "Robots and Empire." All of Asimov's robot stories contain the famous "Three Laws of Robots": 1) A robot may not injure a human or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm; 2) a robot must obey orders given to it by a human, except where it would conflict with the first law; and 3) a robot must protect itself, as long as that protection doesn't violate either the first or second law. (Presumably these laws are hard coded into a robot's chip set, making one wonder what happens if the chip set is exchanged.) Asimov's "Foundation" series of eight novels are also being developed as feature films by 20th Century Fox, with Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth, The Four Feathers) set to direct.
The film is set on a futuristic Earth in the year 2050 A.D., in a world where robots are assistants and workers for their human masters, who have grown completely dependent on their mechanical servants. A murder has occurred and a robot is implicated, meaning that it had violated the Laws of Robotics, which is supposedly impossible. The crime is investigated by a technophobic police detective (Will Smith), whose partner is Sonny, himself a robot. Determining whether or not robots can break these laws becomes crucial, as he uncovers a massive conspiracy that could mean that robots are secretly running the world. Filming was originally slated to take place in director Alex Proyas' (Dark City, The Crow, Garage Days) native Australia, but was moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to save costs, although Proyas is maintaining offices in Sydney to complete some work. Production is scheduled to start on April 28, 2003 and last for about five months, wrapping up in early October, 2003. According to Fox's film president Hutch Parker, "Putting [Smith] in a film with a visualist like Proyas and one of the most indelible preawareness titles in science fiction makes this well worth the five or so years we've invested in the project." Production companies working on the film include Davis Entertainment (Waterworld, Daddy Day Care), Mystery Clock Cinema (Dark City, Garage Days), and Laurence Mark Productions (Glitter, Bicentennial Man). This is the second feature film to be adapted from Asimov's works, following the widely panned Bicentennial Man, starring Robin Williams.
Isaac Asimov was one of the most prolific and influential writers of the 20th century. He wrote nearly 500 books, on a range of subjects that extended far beyond science fiction. Asimov was born in 1920 in Petrovichi, Russia, near Smolensk, the son of Judah and Anna Rachel Berman Asimov. He was brought to America in 1923 and was naturalized in 1928. He taught himself to read at age four by looking at road signs, graduated from high school at age 15, and sold his first science fiction story at 18. That story, "Marooned Off Vesta," appeared in the October 1938 issue of Amazing Stories. In 1941, he sold "Nightfall" to Astounding Science Fiction, whose editor John W. Campbell Jr., was considered unequalled in his ability to find talented writers. Asimov graduated from Columbia University in 1939 with a bachelor of science degree, then earned an M.A. in 1941 and a Ph.D. in chemistry there in 1948. A year later, he accepted an offer from Boston University's School of Medicine to teach biochemistry, even though he had never taken a class in the subject. However, he soon decided to focus on writing and stopped teaching in 1958, although he remained on the faculty. Asimov's science-fiction tales have won numerous awards, including five Hugos, given by the fans, and three Nebula Awards, given by his fellow writers. He eschewed fancy, stylistic writing for clear prose that got the point across, claiming that "I never read Hemingway or Fitzgerald or Joyce or Kafka." His typical routine was to awake at 6 in the morning, begin pounding on the typewriter by 7:30 and toil away until 10 at night, telling others that "Writing is my only interest. Even speaking is an interruption." Unlike many other science fiction writers, Asimov based his stories strictly on known science. At age 72, he died of heart and kidney failure after contracting AIDS from a transfusion of tainted blood during a triple-bypass operation.
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