born Villeneuve was blown away by Chiang’s
short story, but was concerned about how it
would translate to the big screen. He was also
in the midst of shooting the Jake Gyllenhaal
mystery drama Prisoners at the time.
“I had no time to write a screenplay,” he
explains, “and, to be honest, I didn’t know
how to crack that story because it’s very
intellectual, in a strong and beautiful
producers
Dan Levine
(Along Came
Polly, The Watch)
and Dan Cohen (TV’s
Stranger Things) and
writer Eric Heisserer
(The Thing, Lights Out).
In search of a new project,
Levine asked Heisserer what
had captured his imagination
recently. By way of reply, Heisserer
gave him a copy of Ted Chiang’s Stories
of Your Life and Others. It didn’t take long
for Levine to realise that he’d found what
he was looking for (about the same length
of time it takes to read a short story, in fact).
“I got the book, read through it and came
across Story of Your Life and my jaw dropped
when the twist hit,” recalls Levine. “I couldn’t
believe how good the story was. Running
through my head was: ‘This is the most amazing
thing I’ve ever read... please let the rights
be available.’ I read it with great anxiety and
then had to hunt down Ted Chiang.”
Pitch perfect
Impressed by the pitch,
Chiang gave Levine his
blessing. The producer’s next
job was to find someone to
develop the project and direct
it. His list had one name
on it: Denis Villeneuve (the
writer/director behind the
Oscar-nominated Incendies),
who he duly approached.
Like Levine and Heisserer
before him, the Canadian12 odeon.co.uk
“I’ve dreamed of
doing sci-fi since
I was 10 years old”
– Denis Villeneuve
way, but from a dramatic point of view it’s
a bit difficult to articulate.”
The writing role instead went to Heisserer
who, as a result of his early involvement, had
already started work on an adaptation.
“They came back to me a few months later
with a screenplay that was surprisingly good,”
says Villeneuve. “I say surprising because Eric
was able to crack it and create a sense of tension
and a drama inside of that process of translation.”
A dream come true
Fast forward several years and Arrival is now
a major motion picture with jaw-dropping
special effects, a gripping storyline and an allstar cast that, in addition to Adams (American
Hustle), includes Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner
(The Hurt Locker) and Oscar winner Forest
Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland). As
Villeneuve himself admits, “Casting [this film]
was the easiest thing in my career because
everybody fell in love with the screenplay.”
Although awards season is still several
months away, Arrival is already generating
plenty of buzz. For Villeneuve, however,
it’s enough that the film was made at all.
“I’ve dreamed of doing science-fiction since I
was 10 years old,” he says with a smile. “It’s
a genre that I feel has a lot of power and the
tools to explore our reality in a very
dynamic way.”
Are you ready for Arrival?