Emmerich says the challenge facing him and screenwriter Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan) is finding a throughline for the film. "There's not one character going through, so Bob Rodat came to me and said, 'I'm like a fanatic reader of ... Foundation,' and I ... talked with him. ... He said, 'We have to consolidate the characters.' And that's what we did, and that's what's worked really, really well in the context. And I think that if Asimov ... would have ... conceived this as a science fiction trilogy or series from the very beginning, he would have done that, too. But he didn't. ... I think in spirit [the movie is] totally Foundation, but it has consolidated characters which go through the three movies."

Rodat keeps promising to deliver the script to Emmerich soon, the director said. "He kind of keeps calling me and saying, 'It's fantastic, Roland! I've never written such a good script.' And I say, 'Well, maybe you should send it to me so I can, like, read [it]?' ... I love him, he's a great, great guy. But I think I get it soon. He promised me, ... he said, like, before 2012 comes out [on Nov. 13]. I said, 'Oh, that's good.'"

In an exclusive interview, Emmerich talked about what inspired him about the series. "Well, it's the same thing that Asimov was inspired by," he said. "Just the downfall of a great civilization and how you can stop it. And you cannot stop it, it's just inherent. ... As a civilization crumbles, it falls."

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Roland Emmerich to Direct Film Based on Asimov's Foundation

Variety reports that Roland Emmerich is being given the opportunity to direct a film based on Isaac Asimov's Foundation after Columbia won screen rights to the film in an auction.

Emmerich and his Centropolis partner Michael Wimer will produce the film. The deal was mid six-figures against low seven figures.

Originally published as a series of eight short stories in Astounding Magazine beginning in 1942, "Foundation" is a complex saga about humans who are scattered on planets throughout the galaxy, living under the rule of the Galactic Empire.

A psycho-historian who can scientifically read the future sees an imminent empire collapse, and sets to work preparing to save the knowledge of mankind.

The emergence of Sony and Emmerich at the controls of "Foundation" is a surprise development, and one that owes at least a bit to the animosity between Warner Bros. and Fox over "Watchmen."

Emmerich also has a film that's supposed to be coming out this summer. It's the mega disaster movie, 2012, which will be out July, 2009.

Posted on January 16, 2009
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