JJ Abrams’ attempt to completely take over Hollywood continues apace, with THR reporting that he’s planning to produce a movie based on the graphic novel/picture book, Boilerplate: Historys Mechanical Marvel, by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett.
The book is a tiny bit steampunk, imagining a Victorian-era very similar to the real one, but in which Professor Archibald Campion built a prototype robot called Boilerplate, for the self-proclaimed purpose of “preventing the deaths of men in the conflicts of nations. As a result the metal man charged into battle alongside notable names such as (according to the official synopsis) ‘Teddy Roosevelt and Lawrence of Arabia. Campion and his robot also circled the planet with the U.S. Navy, trekked to the South Pole, made silent movies, and hobnobbed with the likes of Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla.’
It sounds like a fairly ambitious book to take on for a film version, which would not only have to recreate various period settings, from the silent movie business to the World War I battlefields, but also deal with all the FX needed to insert the titular robot. It could certainly be rather cool, but the film’s future rather depends on whether Abrams has the clout to get a studio to invest in what may be seen as a rather risky proposition.