‘Cloud Atlas’ Is Four Oscar Bait Movies and Two SF Ones In One

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas is a novel widely considered unadaptable and for excellent reason. The structure is six nested stories traveling across centuries. It’d require a huge cast and burning dump trucks of production money.

Hey, that sounds like something the Wachowskis like to do!

The film is being co-directed by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer, who first caught mainstream attention for Run Lola Run and hasn’t done much of note since. It’s also notable in that they’ve spent $140 million on this thing, it’s nearly three hours long, and either it will be a truly amazing film or it will be an epic train wreck.

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I bring this up because the movie this reminds me the most of is the sadly underrated and beautiful The Fountain, which also told a series of nested stories. This seems to be what that movie was originally intended to be.

I don’t know… four period romances, a future dystopia, and a post-apocalyptic one? In one movie? From two directors? Cloud Atlas will either be amazing or a disaster. I guess we’ll know in October.

Oh, wait, it’s got Keith David. Never mind, it will be mind-blowing. Everything’s better with Keith David.

image courtesy Focus Features

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