Film Audiences Get 'Earthbound' with Richard Matheson
You can't keep a good writer down. Or, apparently, out of America's multiplexes. According to The Hollywood Reporter, yet another film is on its way based on a story by legendary horror writer Richard Matheson; whose work was last adapted for the screen in the mangled Will Smith version of I Am Legend and Richard Kelly's wacky The Box.
Producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, in partnership with Imagenation Abu Dhabihas, have optioned the rights to Earthbound, a novel by Matheson that's been billed as an "erotic ghost story." (The duo recently got the rights to the web site Museum of SuperNatural History.) "Earthbound," says HR, "is the first acquisition done outside of DreamWorks Studios, where the producers have a first-look deal."
The trade paper describes Earthbound as centering "on a married man who starts an affair with a young stranger, only to realize that she may actually be the ghost of a long-dead woman driven by something much more than earthly passion."
Ronnie Christensen, who scripted Passengers and Locked In, will write the screenplay. Parkes remarks in HR that, "Richard Matheson's novels and short stories have been adapted into some of the most memorable science fiction and fantasy films ever produced -- from Steven Spielberg's landmark 'Duel,' to the elegant time-travel romance 'Somewhere in Time,' to last year's mega-hit 'I Am Legend. We're excited to have the opportunity to work on one of this extraordinary author's most intimate and suspenseful novels."
The most successful Matheson adaptations -- The Incredible Shrinking Man and Duel -- have been scripted by Matheson himself; and the scribe's original scripts for everything from Kolchak the Night Stalker to Trilogy of Terror are among the best horror ever filmed. On some level, I guess it's nice to know Matheson's name is made known to today's audiences through projects like Earthbound. I just wish producers and studios would stop linking that name to work inferior to almost everything Matheson himself has created.
