With movies like “Gattaca,” “In Time,” and “S1m0ne,” writer-director Andrew Niccol has made a career out of crafting sci-fi worlds that comment on emerging real-world issues like genetic engineering and the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
Clive Owen will star in the next film from Niccol, Deadline reported today. Here”s the logline for this new movie, called “Anon”:
[Owen] plays a detective in a world with no privacy, ignorance and anonymity. It is the end of crime. However, when Owen”s character stumbles on a young woman who doesn”t exist, he discovers it may not be the end of crime but the beginning.
A world with no privacy – looks like Niccol is now using sci-fi to comment on issues we encounter in our own reality of dwindling privacy in a post-Snowden, social media-dominated world.
1997″s “Gattaca” established Niccol as a creator of quality, sleek-looking, and thought-provoking sci-fi. He followed up “Gattaca,” his directorial debut, with the script for “The Truman Show.” Since then, he hasn”t really lived up to that magnificent debut starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. Niccol has proven he still has strength with complex world-building – as with his time-is-literally-money thriller “In Time” – but he hasn”t managed to make the story and characters of these later movies as compelling as the sci-fi concept that”s launched their tale.
Will Clive Owen”s “Anon” detective”s story be as emotionally engaging as Vincent, Irene, and Jerome”s journey in “Gattaca”? Or will it be just another pretty world-building exercise?