J.J. Abrams Producing ‘Boilerplate’ Adaptation

On top of the likes of Super 8, Mission: Impossible IV and Star Trek 2, JJ. Abrams is adding yet another project to his very busy slate in the form of Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel, an adaptation of a unique graphic novel.

Paramount has picked up the rights to Boilerplate, a graphic novel by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett (Heartbreakers) but although the adaptation appears to be officially based on the graphic novel first published just last year, the idea first started on a website back in 1999 as a way for Guinan to pitch the idea as a graphic novel.

Here’s the plot as Heat Vision has it:

“Boilerplate” purports to tell the story of the world’s first robot, who, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fought alongside Teddy Roosevelt and Lawrence of Arabia, journeyed to the South Pole and was involved in the silent movie business before disappearing on the battlefields of World War I.

What’s strange is the robot character took on a life of its own (so to speak) when visitors to the site started beliveing that it actually existed and did all the things its fictional background said. Think of an historic big-foot but with nuts and bolts .

Boilerplate is unique not just in its in idea but with the way it shows the character in action. The artwork and images are created in the style of the era its set and then the robot is inserted into it. If you look at some of the artwork/images it’s a strange but rather stunning technique:

As usual, Abrams will produce Boilerplate through his Bad Robot production company, after Deborah Newmyer (The Ugly Truth) brought the project to them.

Boilerplate fits in with Abrams’/Bad Robot’s preference to genre material. Also on their slate is an untitled Antwerp heist movie based on a Wired magazine article and Mystery on Fifth Avenue, a film based on a New York Times article about a Manhattan family’s house that was built as a giant puzzle. In an unusual departure from what they usually handle, the next project from Abrams and Co. is the comedy Morning Glory, starring Harrison Ford.

On top of those and the aforementioned Star Trek 2, Mission: Impossible IV and Super 8, Abrams also has several other projects listed in development, from “Untitled J.J. Abrams Earthquake Project” to Micronauts. Is he trying to compete with the likes of Guillermo del Toro, Robert Rodriguez and Steven Spielberg for the busiest filmmaker in Hollywood?

More on Boilerplate as news comes out.

Source: Heat Vision