David Fincher currently producing a film version of Robert Silverberg's short story PASSENGERS!

BTW... I just realized that Moriarty reviewed this script CLICK HERE to read!!! I'm gonna work to read it myself, but check out his review... Fantastic stuff!

Hey folks, Harry here... David Fincher is currently searching for a director to helm a cinematic adaptation of Robert Silverberg's fantastic science fiction short story... PASSENGERS. I have long been looking forward to Silverberg coming to the big screen. I'm a huge fan of George Huang's screenplay for NEEDLE IN A TIMESTACK which has been stuck in limbo for way way way too long, and some of the theories of timewaves from that story have been incorporated into the screenplay for the Bradbury adaptation SOUND OF THUNDER. We had Silverberg influences in Chris Columbus' BICENTENNIAL MAN which had a few tonal issues. But it looks as if PASSENGERS might be the first geniune Silverberg property brought to the screen.

The short story was a HUGO and NEBULA award winner and details a future where we have been invaded by aliens. Now these aliens randomly take us over for 3 day periods, where they make us do terribly out of character things. Mankind has decided that it is useless to fight it, so they have just adjusted to it and when an inflicted person is possessed, they call it being 'ridden' "That's ok, he's just being ridden" That type of thing.

In the short story there was no alien plot or anything, literally the aliens or basically treated like a new version of the flu, which just happens to be extraterrestrial. The ettiquette for being 'ridden' is to never make reference to whatever it was you did while being 'ridden'. The story in question is about a man that while being ridden had sex with a woman, and after he is freed, he wants to continue that relationship, and the book is about how society reacts to this.

Now, whether or not the script that Fincher and his co-producer Michael London are developing sticks closely to this short story, or if they've taken its themes and formed their own story is unknown. However, the material and themes of responsibity for one's actions whilst under the influence are very appropriate for the times today as they were when Silverberg published it during 1969 when 'influenced' Free Love was everywhere.

Some of these themes were explored by Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman in the fantastic BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, but this focuses more upon the feelings of the possessed than the possessor, as that film dealt with. Let's hope Fincher finds someone wonderful to make this one!