With Bad Boys: Ride or Die having a strong run at the box office, Sony Pictures is looking to stay in business with Will Smith, and they’ve got a new project set up.
Smith is set to star in a sci-fi thriller titled Resistor, which is based on the book Influx by author Daniel Suarez. The story is a cyberthriller that imagines a world in which decades of technological advances have been suppressed in an effort to prevent disruptive change.
The description of the book reads: “Are smart phones really humanity’s most significant innovation since the moon landings? Or can something else explain why the bold visions of the 20th century–fusion power, genetic enhancements, artificial intelligence, cures for common disease, extended human life, and a host of other world-changing advances–have remained beyond our grasp? Why has the high-tech future that seemed imminent in the 1960’s failed to arrive?
“Perhaps it did arrive…but only for a select few. Particle physicist Jon Grady is ecstatic when his team achieves what they’ve been working toward for years: a device that can reflect gravity.
“Their research will revolutionize the field of physics–the crowning achievement of a career. Grady expects widespread acclaim for his entire team. The Nobel. Instead, his lab is locked down by a shadowy organization whose mission is to prevent at all costs the social upheaval sudden technological advances bring.
“This Bureau of Technology Control uses the advanced technologies they have harvested over the decades to fulfill their mission.
”They are living in our future. Presented with the opportunity to join the BTC and improve his own technology in secret, Grady balks, and is instead thrown into a nightmarish high-tech prison built to hold rebellious geniuses like himself.
“With so many great intellects confined together, can Grady and his fellow prisoners conceive of a way to usher humanity out of its artificial dark age?
“And when they do, is it possible to defeat an enemy that wields a technological advantage half a century in the making?”
The script for the film was written by Zak Olkewicz, with Eric Singer penning the latest draft. Escape Artists has been working on getting this film project off the ground for some time, “but after getting a script from Singer last month that excited execs, the studio and producers saw this as a perfect star vehicle for Smith.”
Sony Pictures moved fast on the project to stay in business with Smith before he was snatched up for another film.
Resistor will be produced Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch and Tony Shaw of Escape Artists.
Source: Deadline
