No, that's not what I scored on my Activison LASERBLAST module, it's a movie... technically a script. Well Agent 4125 has reported in, he's been a spy in the past, but changed identites when people got too close. What they don't know is 4125 refers to the first four numbers in the serial number of his lucky dollar he has hidden behind the fifth cookie jar on the third shelf of the second cabinent on the right. We heard some news about 20 BILLION quite some time ago, and here is a breakdown on the script. So take a gander...
"Agent 4125" for the purposes of this scoop.
WARNING SPOILERS!
I just had the opportunity to read the screenplay for 20 BILLION by Michael Tolkin, Steven Gaghan and Michael R. Perry.
Bottom line: very amusing, smart and well-observed. I read it in one sitting, which is always a good sign. As you might expect coming from Tolkin, 20 BILLION does for the computer industry what THE PLAYER did for Hollywood -- it's a fictionalized but highly observant warts-and-all look at the computer industry and in particular its number one power-player Dennis Morton, founder of Interface Corp and the world's richest man. He's also something of a nerd. (If you can't figure out who Morton's real-life inspiration is, there's no hope for you).
The movie flits back and forth in time, using the clever and appropriately thematic visual device of a "home page" which accesses information about the characters' histories -- at pertinent moments, the screen digitizes, a cursor appears and opens a new "window" which expands and presents a flashback clip before closing and returning us to the present day.
The story concerns Dennis' rise from computer geek to world's most powerful industrialist (again, told mostly in flashback) and his sinister plan to, along with a cabal of equally uber-rich CEOs, flee Earth in a fleet of private rocket ships and settle in a survival bunker on the moon for 10 or 15 years -- the idea being to avoid the impending environmental apocalypse that the cabal, known as the Telluride Group, is convinced is imminent.
Meanwhile, Morton and Interface Corp face plunging stock prices after one of their faulty computer programs kills dozens of miners in an industrial accident, Morton falls in love with his new PR girl and... lots of other cool stuff happens.
The primary story -- the Earth-fleeing cabal -- seems a little too similar to the story of Ben Elton's excellent novel STARK to my liking, but that aside 20 BILLION is a pretty spot-on and biting satire of Bill Gates, Microsoft et al. While Tolkin's THE PLAYER was based on no-one in particular, Dennis Morton is Gates -- a lot of the comedy derives from the huge house Morton/Gates has built outside of Seattle, including an AI chip that follows you and talks to you wherever you go, the world's tallest water slides and even its own 24-hour food court including a Cinnabon's and Wendy's!
There's lots of fun to be had here -- 20 BILLION is every bit as
sharp as
THE PLAYER, although with a slightly bouncier, happier ending. Gates-haters
will love it, but Gates himself may have a word or two to say via his
high-priced lawyers -- it'll be interesting to see how that pans out.
