Fox To co-Finance Spielberg’s ‘Robopocalypse’ With DreamWorks

Both DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox have shown interest in helping Steven Spielberg co-finance his new sci-fi robot film “Robopocalypse,” an ambitious project announced last November before the book was even completed.

Adapted from the novel written by Daniel H. Wilson, “Robopocalypse” is a “cautionary tale of man verse machine.” If this sounds a bit like the Terminator then you are absolutely correct. However, whereas the Terminator was set in a more sci-fi fictional setting, “Robopocalypse” will be more science base as the author of the book has a background in robotics and artificial intelligence which will help shape the story “with a frightening level of realism.”

Here’s a full description from the book:
They are in your house. They are in your car. They are in the skies…Now they’re coming for you.

In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans – a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire – but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.

When the Robot War ignites — at a moment known later as Zero Hour — humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us…and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.

Source: Deadline