Several folks have tried to bring back THE PRISONER. Not a surprise; anyone who’s seen the show understands its cinematic, psychedelic appeal, and why people like Christopher Nolan, William Monahan, and Christopher McQuarrie have circled a remake at one point or another. Hell, AMC actually got that miniseries with Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellan off the ground, though the results didn’t get anyone too excited. Now, Sir Ridley Scott is in talks to helm a feature adaptation of the series for Universal as they look for writers and a leading man to bolster the project.
The brilliant, fascinating thing about THE PRISONER (which star Patrick McGoohan co-created himself as a mind-bending follow-up to his previous series, DANGER MAN) is how well so many of its subjects and themes hold up nearly 50 years later. The series was heavily rooted in Cold War tensions, but the concepts of mind control, constant surveillance, subliminal inception, the treatment of confidential government assets, and cultish, backdoor power structures remain thoroughly relevant today. It's easy to transplant Number 6's paranoia to today's post-Snowden, Wikileaks, and Patriot Act world, where privacy is decidedly and completely a thing of the past.
The chief problem with remaking THE PRISONER is, well, that it’s so fucking good. You’d think it’d be a cinch for someone like McQuarrie to do a draft that would pay respect to the twists and turns of the series, or that Nolan would pitch something that would get the evocative, tense vibe of The Village down, but it’s tough to say how an ideal, commercial version of this property should be handled.
Having said that, Ridley Scott is still the guy who made ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER, and he has a crapload of momentum on his back after the funny, realistic-feeling THE MARTIAN (which also isolated a lone movie star for its runtime, albeit emotionally and physically), so why not let him take a crack at it? No doubt he could portray a Village as colorful and menacing as the original, and stuff like THE COUNSELOR shows that he can depict walls closing in along with the best of them. The question is whether his take would be more in line with the original, in which fisticuffs always took a backseat behind the highbrow symbolism and abstract plotlines, or a MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE-type adaptation that fits Number 6 into a more traditional, audience-pleasing spy story. After all, it's one thing to punish the lead for 17 episodes, but how many times can 6 fail to escape during a two-hour narrative?
This is one where the writing and casting are just as crucial as what Scott is bringing to the table, so who they get to play Number 6 and who comes up with what the poor ex-spy has to go through is paramount. I, and, as I’m sure, the rest of us PRISONER fans out there, have no interest in seeing another half-baked take on this idea, but if Sir Ridley signs on and gets talent aboard that is worthy (and reverent) of the property, this could potentially blow peoples’ minds the same way ours were blown the first time we saw that killer balloon heading McGoohan’s way.
If very little of this made sense to you because you haven’t seen THE PRISONER, well, you just gotta cut out an hour of time for the first episode as soon as humanly possible.
Who would you want to see drive Number Six's convertible?
