Lynne Ramsay is shaking up Moby Dick in a way that will get modern audiences to actually pay mind to the most-famous-book-no-one-reads (this guy aside) -- she's taking the story to space. Sounds like just the kind of counterintuitive thinking to work, especially with Ramsay -- the acclaimed director of 1999's "Ratcatcher" and this year's "We Need to Talk About Kevin" -- at the helm. She gave BBC Radio 5Live the details about her sci-fi remaining of Melville's classic:
"We're taking the premise into the galaxy. So we're creating a whole new world, and a new alien," Ramsay said. "[It's] a very psychological piece, mainly taking place in the ship, a bit like 'Das Boot,' so it's quite claustrophobic."
She added, "It's another monster movie, cause the monster's Ahab."
Key words: alien, monster, space, ship. Spaceship?! The most exciting thing about this news is that we can't even begin to imagine how this will be visualized, especially with no monster in mind (for now we'll just imagine Gregory Peck will be resurrected for the role). Ramsay did say she has a trailer made, though, so perhaps that will change soon.
Watch for more details on "Moby Dick in Space":