Back to the future

Arthur J Pais

Ask producer Walter F Parkes how he signed Simon Wells to direct a remake of the 1962 classic The Time Machine, inspired by his great grandfather HG Wells' novel of the same name. You may first hear a chuckle and then an explanation.

"If there is such a thing as kismet in the film business, this is a good example of it," says Parkes whose hits include the Oscar winner Gladiator.

Currently, The Time Machine is the Number 1 film in America.

Wells, who has directed several animation films including The Prince Of Egypt (produced by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks Studio), had heard two years ago that a remake of The Time Machine was in the pipeline. He gingerly approached the big guns at DreamWorks, asking them if he could take a stab at a live action film.

"We had already seen him as an extraordinary talent in animation and felt he could be a good action filmmaker," notes Parkes, in the production notes of The Time Machine.

"I had no idea he was the great grandson of HG Wells. It was only after I learnt that he had professed some interest in directing the film, that I found out," he adds.

HG Wells, English novelist, journalist, sociologist and historian, is best known for his science fiction, which urged a better social order dictated by egalitarianism and peace. The Time Machine was published in 1895, followed two years later by The Invisible Man. This was followed by The War Of The Worlds.

In a nutshell, The Time Machine is about Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce -- LA Confidential, Memento) who is determined to prove that time travel is possible. He invents a time machine in the late 1800s that takes him 800,000 years into the future. There he discovers that mankind has evolved into two races: the Eloi and the Morlocks. And without his help, the Eloi will be subjugated and destroyed.

The remake, which reportedly cost $80 million, opened across North America on March 8. Most reviewers drubbed the film, calling it a misadventure.

"If only we could go back in time and pretend it was never made..." said Atlanta Journal Constitution. Roger Ebert noted in Chicago Sun Times, "...a witless recycling of the HG Wells story from 1895, with the absurdity intact but the wonderment missing."

In Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington complains, "...one of those staggeringly well-produced, joylessly extravagant pictures that keep whooshing you from one visual marvel to the next, hastily, emptily."

And yet the film grossed $21 million in three days. The younger audiences were happy with the film's tempo and extravaganza. Whether they will go back to see it again is another question. Some box office pundits expect the film to take a big fall next weekend in the absence of strong word of mouth.

Even with a heavy decline next week, it could end its American run with a middling $60 million gross. But with foreign grosses and DVD and video sales, the film could eventually become profitable.

While the makers of the remake profess that they have been faithful to Wells' vision especially while recreating the time machine, their version departs from the book and the 1962 classic in several aspects.

For instance, the time traveller has a name, Alexander Hartdegen. And the personal tragedy in his life is new.

"In adapting the material for today's audiences," explains scriptwriter John Logan (Gladiator), "We felt it would be more exciting, more interesting to create an emotional context for Alexander's building the time machine. We began to think about what would compel a man to go to such extraordinary lengths to break the boundaries of time."

The new film offers a new character, Uber-Morlock (Oscar-winner Jeremy Irons -- Reversal Of Fortune), the brilliant and terrifying human-like ruler.

But the character is not entirely invented, Simon Wells claims. His great grandfather had conceived the character but chose to remove it from the final version of the novel.

"But we have reinvented it to serve as a singularly worthy adversary to Alexander Hartdegen."