Will Smith continues his assault on the sci-fi genre

Oh no. The greatest threat to modern sci-fi film adaptations has potentially struck again. Not content with reducing Asimov to a robo-whodunnit with retro trainers, and Matheson’s ironically titled I Am Legend to a hero piece glorifying a thinly-veiled Will Smith likeness as he saves the world yet again, the Smithinator has now set his sights on Daniel Keyes’ sci-fi novella, Flowers For Algernon.

Keyes’ 1966 novel, which was expanded from a Hugo award-winning short story, and went on to win the Nebula, is the story of a educationally subnormal young man who is chosen for an experiment to radically increase his IQ. The effects of the treatment are short-lived, however, and he is left helpless as his insight and curiosity slowly drain away; a fate foreshadowed in the life and death of lab mouse Algernon.

Multiple sources suggest that Smith is eyeing the role for himself - the more cynical among them suggesting it’s with a view to awards glory. We won’t speculate on motives but must come out and say: it’s a bad idea. While the book itself is poignantly affecting, it would be difficult to adapt to film without turning it into a nasty, syrupy weepfest. Moreover, it would work best with an unknown in the role of protagonist Charlie.

Hilariously, the novel was once adapted into a musical that played in the West End in 1979, with Michael Crawford playing Charlie. Crawford got such a good response from a musical number he performed, during which he sang while a white mouse ran from hand to hand, that he subsequently incorporated it into a later (unrelated) musical. Other appalling adaptations nonwithstanding, we still think the Smith version is a terrible idea.

Whether it comes to anything or not, Smith’s assault on the sci-fi genre is likely to continue unabated. He is in talks to star in a prequel to I Am Legend (presumably detailing the pre-apocalypse apocalypse, in which he saves the world again – tsk, stupid world, always getting into mischief) and a sequel to I, Robot.

In news that will delight fans of Park Chan-Wook, it seems that the Spielberg/Smith Oldboy remake may be collapsing. Since Smith has of late occupied himself with roles that require him to be heroic and/or big-hearted and/or altruistic, could there have been a slight mismatch with the hammer-wielding, self-mutilating, incest-performing protagonist of the film? We speculated some time ago that Mr Smith would require some hefty rewrites. Perhaps they wrote all the Oldboy out of the story?