Once he's done with his motion-capture remake of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine, it looks like Robert Zemeckis might be teaming with Disney on a new family franchise based on the upcoming young adult novel Dark Life. Not exactly a departure from his recent fixation on literary adaptations, but at least it's a brand new novel and not one we've already seen adapted, like, a trillion times (ahem, A Christmas Carol).
The novel itself sounds pretty cool, too, as it's set in a near future where people live on the ocean floor due to rising ocean levels and things like global warming. Oh, and living underwater certainly has its benefits (aside from as much fresh fish as you could ever hope for) since apparently kids somehow develop superpowers. The story of the novel revolves around an underwater boy and a surface girl (meaning a girl who still lives out of the water) who team to uncover a government conspiracy.
The most interesting part of this whole deal is that we're not sure whether Zemeckis will go the motion-capture route since the company he's been using to do the effects for his last three films is going out of business. Could Zemeckis appease his fans and finally return to live action? As one of those fans, I sincerely hope so. Not that I haven't enjoyed his mo-cap efforts, but some of his best work has been in the world of live action (Back to the Future, anyone), and so it would be great to see him get back to that.
Then again, a story that takes place (at least partially) underwater has all the markings of motion-capture 3D, a la Avatar, so we'll have to see where this one goes. Personally, I was sorta hoping they'd finally announce a Roger Rabbit sequel, but I guess that's not meant to be … yet.
What would you rather see: Zemeckis go live action or motion capture with Dark Life?
