Martian Child, The

By: Corona's Coming Attractions
Date: Friday, August 27, 2004

Genre:
Drama.

Studio:
New Line Cinema.

Production Company:
Unknown.

Project Phase:
In Development.

Who's In It:
John Cusack.

Who's Making It:
Menno Meyjes (Director); Menno Meyjes, Jonathan Tolins, Seth Bass (Screenwriters); based upon the short story The Martian Child by David Gerrold.

Premise:
A science fiction writer adopts a six-year-old boy who's a little different from most kids his age: he believes he's actually an alien from Mars.

Release Date:
Unknown.

Comments:
None.

Scoop Feedback:

October 17, 2002... Variety reports that New Line Cinema has purchased THE MARTIAN CHILD, a short story by SF author David Gerrold (STAR TREK'S "The Trouble with Tribbles" remains his best known work), to be adapted by Jonathan Tolins and Seth Bass.

The yarn concerns an adoptive father's gradual acceptance of his son's claim to be a Martian. The Variety article describes the film as character driven. [Variety.]

June 14, 2004... New Line Cinema has enticed star John Cusack (RUNAWAY JURY) and director Nick Cassavetes (THE NOTEBOOK) to THE MARTIAN CHILD, a drama by science fiction author David Gerrold (THE WAR AGAINST THE CHTORR.) Adapted from Gerrold's short story by screenwriters Jonathan Tolins and Seth Bass, Cusack will play a sci-fi writer who adopts a six-year-old child who's a little different from most kids his age: he believes he's actually an alien from Mars.

The studio wants filming on THE MARTIAN CHILD to begin sometime this fall. [Variety.]

August 25, 2004... Screenwriter-turned-director Menno Meyjes has come aboard THE MARTIAN CHILD for New Line Cinema. Meyjes replaces director Nick Cassavetes who departed the movie earlier this year over creative differences.

Based on a short story by science fiction writer David Gerrold (THE WAR AGAINST THE CHTORR), THE MARTIAN CHILD stars John Cusack as a sci-fi writer that adopts a seven-year-old boy that comes from an abusive background. The young child believes that he's really an alien from Mars, and the new father is content to play along with the boy's imagination until strange occurrances make him start to suspect something unusual may be going on. Gerrold's novelette won him the Nebula Award, the Locus Readership Poll Award and the Hugo Award in 1994.

Meyjes will perform a rewrite of the script before filming begins, which is now expected to happen sometime in the late fall. [The Hollywood Reporter.]