One of my favorite science fiction movies of all time is getting a TV adaptation. Directed by my favorite director, Stephen Spielberg, and starring one my favorite actors, Tom Cruise,
Minority Report was a seminal experience, a fantastic thriller/drama/sci-fi pulse-pounding ride from start to finish. There are shots and scenes in this film that resonate with me to this day, in particular the part with Cruise's John Anderton and precog Agatha shoulder to shoulder speaking on the future, and how he still had a choice. It's so simple yet so effective, as many of Spielberg's shots are.
If this complex, dystopian future world is to be revisited on the small screen, the writers and production designers have a difficult job ahead of them. In the film, the world feels real and lived in. It is as if you could walk directly into the screen and feel at home; maybe not comfortable, but it would feel like our world only pushed forward in time. The details and depth of this social and judicial configuration could be done well in another medium like television. The original story was written by Philip K. Dick so there is built-in sociopolitical complexity that I pray they employ and expand upon.
Based on what we know about Fox's commitment to a pilot for a show about this film, I think only the bare bones of the concept will make it to TV sets around the world. It will be set 10 years after the events of the film, putting it around the year 2064. This is after the precrime unit has disbanded in Washington, D.C., and the show will follow one of the precogs who is struggling to lead a normal life. Supposedly this precog is a male so it won't be Agatha; but regardless, he is haunted by visions of the future, then meets a female detective with a troubled past. So I guess they are flipping the gender roles on us in relation to the film. Further details are unknown at this time.
Will this show work? Does it have legs to make it long on the air? Sound off below.
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