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Channing Tatum is set to star in a big screen adaptation of a sci-fi novel by Joe Haldeman called The Forever War. The project has had a very long road to production. Special effects artist Richard Edlund, who worked on films such as Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, picked up the rights in the 1970s and held onto them for over 20 years. Then, in 2008, Ridley Scott acquired the rights to the property and was developing it as a project that he would direct. It never ended up happening though, and the rights lapsed.
Now the project is in a bidding war between Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures. I’m not sure where all this excitement was when Edlund and Scott were developing it. Scott is no longer attached to the project, but Prometheus screenwriter Jon Spaihts is attached to write the script.
The novel was published in 1974, and it has been described as “a science-fiction epic, a bit of The Odyssey by way of Blade Runner, built on a brilliant, disorienting premise.”
The story follows “a young man conscripted into a military task force in a war against an alien species named the Taurans. Through many battles, the man rises up the ranks of the military but travelling through space has time-warping effects, causing him to age normally but Earth to spin centuries.The planet undergoes many changes, including the melding into one homogenous race, the elimination of heterosexuality, and the speaking of a new language. At the same time, he tries to remain connected to his true love, a fellow (and female) soldier who also uses space-time to slow down her aging so she can be with him.”
With Tatum on board to star and multiple studios on fire to get their hands on it, I guess this story is primed and ready for that feature film to finally happen.
