Who here likes seeing heads get blown up? All of you, huh. Thought so much. Well then you’re probably going to want to read everything possible about the SCANNERS remake that’s in the works right now, courtesy of director Darren Lynn Bousman (SAW II, III, and IV) and screenwriter David Goyer (BATMAN BEGINS, BLADE).
Goyer recently dropped a few hints at what we can expect from the flick to Sci Fi Wire.
“I’m a huge Cronenberg fan, and Scanners was definitely one of my favorite films as a kid. What we’re trying to do is take all the best elements of that. … He obviously made it on a shoestring budget, so this time hopefully we can expand upon what he did.”
Which probably means that heads will explode in more advanced ways, most likely with the aid of CGI. I hope they don’t go overboard with it, it should be done with practical effects, since watching a head burst apart is one of the purest movie-going experiences you can have.
Goyer continued: “One of the … things that’s also great about Scanners was the fact that Cronenberg embeds so much subtext into his stories. So we’ve tried to keep the spirit of that and kind of transpose that into a post-9/11 world, if you can imagine what Scanners would be involved in in that kind of world. That’s what we’re attempting to do here.”
In case you’re not aware, the film involves a group of rogue “scanners,” people who have extremely badass telekinetic powers, plotting to take over the world (see below for a good example of their methods). A “good” scanner has to stop them. Meanwhile, big business and a shady government sect are implicated in the proceedings… So while anyone using 9/11 in reference to a horror movie usually makes my eyes roll, there are certainly opportunities for timely political jabs in this story (as there were in David Cronenberg’s original).
I DEMAND that my head stop exploding!