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Tron Legacy Director Joe Kosinski Talks Black Hole Remake

by Ethan Anderton
February 9, 2010
Source: MTV

With the highly anticipated Tron Legacy not slated to hit theaters until this December, freshmen director Joseph Kosinski still has 11 months of hard work ahead of him before the film's release. But that didn't stop him from looking ahead to his remake of the 1979 sci-fi flick The Black Hole. Kosinksi sat down with MTV and not only revealed that Clash of the Titans writer Travis Beacham will start working on the script soon, but he also talked about the film conceptually and just how much of the original we can expect to see. One thing he made perfectly clear is that this is a straight up re-imagining of the story. Read on for more!

Kosinski says right off the bat that this isn't a return to the world created in the 1979 film. He explains:

"This one will be a reimagining. For me, it would be taking ideas and iconic elements that struck me as timeless and cool and preserving them while weaving a new story around them that's a little more '2001: [A Space Odyssey].'"

In the original story, the crew of the spaceship Palamino stumbles across the "lost" ship the U.S.S. Cygnus, hovering on the edge of an immense black hole. Once aboard, they find that the ship is manned by robots (including a large killer robot named Maximilian - seen in the photo above) with it's only human being Dr. Hans Reinhardt - an eminent scientist, missing for the past twenty years. His plan: to enter the Black Hole. Whether Dr. Reinhardt is a genius or a mad-man, one thing is for sure, he will not be denied his life's dream.

Kosinski's remake will craft a new story around a much bigger budget and with 30 years of new scientific knowledge on black holes. The director elaborates:

"From a conceptual point of view, we know so much more about black holes now, the crazy things that go on as you approach them due to the intense gravitational pull and the effects on time and space. All that could provide us with some really cool film if we embrace it in a hard science way."

Among the elements of the original film that Kosinski will translate to the remake include Maximilian, the [SPOILER] grisly death of Cygnus' top dog Dr. Alex Durant (played originally by Anthony Perkins) and the design of the ship. Koskinski remembers how these elements struck him as a kid first watching this:

"I saw 'Black Hole' as a little kid. What sticks out most is the robot Maximilian. The blades and the vicious killing of Anthony Perkins. That freaked me out and that's definitely going to be an element that will be preserved. The design of the Cygnus ship is one of the most iconic spaceships ever put to film."

Since I haven't yet seen the original, I don't have much a frame of reference for how loved certain elements of the film may be to sci-fi fandom, but it's very cool to see this kind of passion come from a director who connected with this story when he was a kid. In passing, a friend once told me that any filmmaker who considers a remake or reboot of a film or franchise lacks vision. I respectfully disagreed and countered that many filmmakers simply have a connection to certain iconic stories and characters, and being able to make them live out your fantasies is an absolute dream come true. More practically, making big, studio films that are successful allows independence later when you want to get one of your original films off the ground.

Anyway, I think we can look forward to some great things from Kosinski, with Tron Legacy and hopefully with The Black Hole as well. We'll do our best to keep you updated on the status of this. Thoughts so far?

Black Hole

Filed under Hype, Movie News, Opinions

From around the web:

http://palepicturehouse.wordpress.com Pale Paul

I'm surprised this film has been re-made before now. It was a solid film for its time but like it says in the interview, there's so much room for great expansion now that technology, both in film and science, is so much more advanced than it was then. The story is a fairly interesting one but nothing too memorable so I won't, for one, cry to see them change that at all. The one thing they must retain, and it seems like they're planning to, is Maximillian. He scared the crap out of me as a kid when I saw the original.
TigerClaw

I hope the other element they put in the remake was the whole Asteroid sequence, When one of the glowing rocks rolls toward the camera as the characters run across the bridge before it was knocked down.
http://www.bradnewsoftheday.com Brad

I hope they keep the soundtrack. That's the only thing I remember being good about that movie.
Frightened Inmate #2

Seems like they're covering all the early 80's classic's. Clash of the Titans, Tron, The Black Hole, Conan the Barbarian and Flash Gordon. When's Megaforce? Krull?
Michael

I am surprised too that this hasn't been remade yet. I do remember the vicious death of Anthony Perkins as well as Maximillions evilness and enigmatic presence throughout the movie. I still love the sequence of the Palamino shining it's beam along the USS Cygnus and the flyby. To this day these parts of the movie stick in my head.. and oh yeah! the Dr's eyes in Maximillions body...ooh GOD that creeped me out.. i just really hope they do something about the ending.. i mean to go through a black hole and you have Heaven and Hell?? it's an ending but it's a bit weak... As far as the soundtrack, keep it! This film is one of the last movies that contained an Overture!
Justin

Awesome news! This was an iconic movie for me and with Star Wars "A New Hope" confirmed me as a life long sci-fi geek.
napoleonblownapart

Yes, this film stayed with me for ages as a kid. Particularly the bit mentioned with Anthony Perkins Any bit with Maximillian The soundtrack/score the incredibly bleak ending considering it was Disney
Luis M

Iconic elements galore. You had the friendly, chatty robots and the tall, mute, killer robot. For a Disney movie it had a lot of dark moments. But please, lose the incandescent asteroids. Asteroids can't burn in a vacuum!
oldbob

Call yourself a movie fan but you've never seen the original Black Hole? The visuals and concept were the best thing about the original film. A remake - or reimagining - could be amazing.
twittwit

#1- "I'm surprised this film has been re-made before now." I'll assume you meant 'hasn't' been remade before now and to answer that, it actually 'was', sor of. If you watch 'Event Horizon', you'll notice a lot of specific similarities although still doesn't hold a candle to 'The Black Hole'.
oldbob

@#10 - Yes, they are very similar movies. But it'd be good to see a proper remake as SF instead of syfy-horror.
nyne

Honestly one of my favorite sci-fi movies! I just watched it again the a couple of months ago after 16+ years. I loved Disney's earlier "evil/dark" side. Maximillian, the cute robots Vincent and Bob, mirror-masked zombie/cyborgs. We also could use some lasers I haven't seen a good laser shootout in a while. Also please keep the classic dinner scene aboard the Cygnus.
blester

Sounds like Kosinski is off to a good start. He identified the most iconic moment in the original: Perkins violent death which scared the hell out of me as a kid. I don't know how many times we recreated that scene playing outdoors. If he gets that scene right, he should do well with the rest of the story. I can't wait to see the re-imaging of Maximillian and Vincent. Ethan, next time you have that conversation with your friend. Ask him how many statues of David there are in Italy. That iconic story was re-imaged thousands of times, Michelangelo's becoming the most famous. It is no different with movies, they are just different types of media. Something tells me that some of the people involved with the re-imaging of that story did not lack vision (Michelangelo, Di Vinci, etc.).
jasonmd2020

I was wondering about this when I saw the Black Hole's (poster? album cover?) on the shelf in young Sam Flynn's room in the trailer. Go back and look...