Why am I writing about In Time? It is because it is Andrew Niccol’s next film. And what is his next film after In Time? The Host. I think it would be great of all of the fans of The Host to take an interest in In Time. I think you can get a feel of the director’s style from seeing his films. Niccol has previously directed Gattaca, Lord of War, and S1m0ne. He has also written the screenplay for The Truman Show as well as for the films he has directed.
Today, at the San Diego Comic Con, the trailer for In Time was revealed. Andrew Niccol, Justin Timberlake, and Amanda Seyfried were in attendance. Here is a little of what happened at the panel, according to HitFix:
“Lindelof talked about moving to Los Angeles in ’94 and reading a lot of scripts at the time. One in particular that jumped out at him was “The Truman Show,” and he talked about how impressed he was with the way the film’s fantastic premise was grounded by the writer. With that, he introduced writer/director Andrew Niccol, who joined him onstage. I think it’s interesting that Niccol doesn’t view his new film as science-fiction, and I’d agree. I think he writes in pure metaphor, using his big ideas to discuss some very basic and fundamental things. He referred to this new film of his, “In Time,” as “the child of ‘Gattaca.'” This is another movie about the effects of genetic manipulation on a society, although this is a pretty extreme version of the idea.
In “In Time,” the good news is that you stop aging at 25 years old. The bad news is that at that point, you only have one year to live, and so time itself has become the primary currency of the age. People spend their minutes and seconds on things they live, and they hustle to find ways to earn more minutes and hours. He talks about how an invention like that would be the death of invention and progress, and how the film is more of a parable than a hard science-fiction story.
Damon asked about casting a movie like this, and Niccol said, “I was looking for both new souls and old souls, since we have people who are from 25 to 105 years old, and we needed to show that. I had to find a 75-year-old worn out character actor in a 25-year-old’s body, for example.”
With that, we were shown a long series of clips from the film, and I’ll say this: it looks slick. It’s a hard premise to swallow, and the idea that your mortality is controlled by a digital clock in your arm doesn’t make logical sense. But if you make the jump, it’s basically an action film with a literal ticking clock. You can see the footage yourself right here.
Afterwards, Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried walked out to discuss the film, and Timberlake talked about how “Gattaca” was a film he loved. He also mentioned how movies like “The Fugitive” and “Die Hard” and “First Blood” were his favorite types of action movies, films about the normal man thrown into extraordinary circumstances. That’s a fair comparison to this one. Timberlake’s character, a hustler who is constantly trying to get more time for himself, ends up with a full century of a dead man’s time on his arm and no explanation for why. He abducts the daughter (Seyfried) of a wealthy man and uses her as his buffer as he tries to figure out what’s going on.
Seyfried talked about how the entire film was basically her running in high heels, and that led into a discussion of how much fun it is to shoot guns, something that Timberlake agreed with. They also mentioned that Cillian Murphy is in the film as the Tommy Lee Jones from “The Fugitive” character, the guy chasing Timberlake who may actually believe in his innocence. Finally, Timberlake talked about how strange it is to have Olivia Wilde, who is three years younger than him, play his mother in the movie.”
Check out the trailer for In Time below. Do you think this raises your expectations for The Host? The film comes out October 28, 2011. I will have you notice that Matt Bomer is in the trailer. He was some your choices for a character in The Host. Maybe Andrew Niccol could put in a good word for him to get a role in The Host . . .
Source: Hitfix, Hollywood Reporter, Ropes of Silicon
