Israelite attended the screening and briefly discussed another project he's doing the upcoming The long in the works remake of the 1983 classic "WarGames" at MGM.
Israelite and "Grace of Monaco" writer Arash Amel are set to join the production. Israelite replaces Seth Gordon ("Horrible Bosses," "The King of Kong") who was linked as both writer/director three years ago, but has decided to work on the live-action, big-budget video game series film adaptation "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" instead.
The original pic starred Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, and centered on a whiz kid computer programmer who finds a way inside the government's military computer system--possibly starting a nuclear war. Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Barry Corbin, Juanin Clay, Kent Williams, and Dennis Lipscomb co-starred. The original film received three Oscar nominations and made almost seven times its budget at the box-office in just North America. Reviews were strong at the time, particularly for its last twenty minutes set within NORAD.
A DTV sorta sequel called WarGames: The Dead Code starring Matt Lanter debuted in '08 and while it tried very hard...
The new version follows a teenage hacker who unwittingly sets off a virus bent on destroying the world's computer systems.
The Fault in Our Stars actor Ansel Elgort and "Mud, "The Tree of Life" star Tye Sheridan are on the shortlist for the young male lead.
Asked about the challenge of creating a new version of such a well-regarded film, Israelite tells io9:
"We're rewriting the script right now and I think we're coming on to something that could be very cool and trying to be its own movie. It's gotta be its own movie for its own time and take the spirit of what the original was. The original was so cool because it was bold and provocative and sophisticated for that time, so we need to take the spirit of that, make our own complete movie that's hopefully bold and sophisticated for this time and that they will stand alone."
Israelite says that working on "Almanac" has helped him a lot, both with ensuring authenticity of the technology and the mannerisms and personalities of the teen characters in the remake:
"I think it was a great lesson. Also just being around young people the whole time on this movie and honestly looking at them all the time when they're working on set with me, they're so wired in in a fascinating way and it's helped me try bring a reality to WarGames, I think so, yeah. And also open my eyes to a bunch of different – like, I didn't subscribe to Wired until I did Project Almanac and now that started influencing me a lot while I was doing Project Almanac. I feel like I'm in that world a little bit in a cool way."
In terms of the technology we'll see in the update, he says the plan is to "be a little bit ahead of its time like the first one was" which is why they're talking to experts and consultants to give them an idea of what's about to come.
Finally he addressed the big question that everyone asks, is Russia the enemy?
"No because the answer is, it's a different time so, all I will say is that the antagonists in the movie are completely different to the first one. You can't compare it. We're not in the Cold War it's not about that. It's about something different."
"Almanac" is set to bow on January 30th 2015
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