Featured Articles
Follow UsRSS 
Subscribe to our RSS Feed RSS
Follow us on Twitter
Popular Articles
Latest NewsRSS 
Sundance 2010 Twitter Tron Legacy Facebook Flynn's Comic-Con TIFF BitGravity

Mandalay Adapting Online Sci-Fi Thriller Novel Machine Man

November 5, 2009
by Ethan Anderton

Machine Man

While this is yet another announcement of a project involving an adaptation of a novel, the circumstances surrounding the novel in question are quite intriguing. As part of an interactive literary experiment in which suggestions from readers are integrated into the plot as the story continues to unfold, author Max Barry has been writing the thriller Machine Man by posting one page of the novel online each day. Now Variety reports that Mandalay Pictures wants to build a movie around the pseudo-choose-your-own-adventure novel about a tech engineer who replaces parts of his body with titanium upgrades of his own design. Sounds cool.

Barry began writing the novel on March 18th, 2009 and while you are able to read the story for free up to page 43, after that you have to pay $6.95 to keep up with the updates. As of September the story had reached 140 pages and counting, though Barry said it looked like the novel would be about 160 to 180 pages total. By my calculations, he should have finished by now, but there's no update on his official site saying the novel is completed. I think the concept of the writing process was brilliant in itself, but as a film this sounds like a Six Million Dollar Man or Iron Man type of story that's going to need to be compelling to get attention.

Anyway, Hollywood seems to like Barry's stories with his previous book, Company, being optioned by Universal, with Shady Acres attached to produce, and Jennifer Government being picked up by Warner Bros. with George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh producing. For now I'll reserve judgment until we hear more about the development of this project or until the novel is finished, so stay tuned for further updates!

Discover More: Movie News, Opinions

 • StumbleUpon

Related Articles

Reader Feedback - 7 Comments »

1

I'm sure Marvel, who owns to copyright on "Machine Man" and whose character the image in this story is pulled from isn't going to like this much…

PiratedTVPro on Nov 5, 2009

2

Apologies on the image… Thought it would be a fun way to represent this, although it's entirely inaccurate. Although I'm sure Mandalay is going to change the name on this by the time the movie comes out.

Alex Billington on Nov 5, 2009

3

Well, that asks and answers the immediate question that popped into my mind, too. I was actually really hoping it WAS the Marvel character, as the character has been popping up a lot lately and has really taken on his/its own identity.

Scotty97 on Nov 5, 2009

4

lol dangit.
I thought it was machine man from marvel too..
he was hilarious in agents of HATE

9mm on Nov 6, 2009

5

dangit, i was hoping it was machine man from Marvel also.

He was great in agents of hate.

9mm on Nov 6, 2009

6

derr…hey! i totally thought this was Marvels Machine man too..which would make for a pretty boring story actually..I read it when Barry windsor smith wrote and drew it, but…yea, live action would suck..

Rachel Replicant on Nov 6, 2009

7

oh yea, and this one also sounds alot like Tetsuo IronMan or 13!

Rachel Replicant on Nov 6, 2009

Leave a Comment