Though filming has only just wrapped on It: Chapter Two, director Andy Muschietti and his producer sister Barbara Muschietti are already confirmed to have another adaptation of a famed novel on the way, with Deadline reporting that the pair are working with Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures and Appian Way to bring H.G. Wells’ 1895 work The Time Machine to the big screen.
The story of an inventor who journeys into the far future and finds a dark and dangerous society waiting for him, the novel is notable for coining the very term ‘time machine,’ and like that other popular Wells story, War of the Worlds, this one has had a fair few adaptations in the past. Previous cinematic interpretations include the fondly remembered 1960 version and the critically panned 2002 flick, the latter of which was helmed by Wells’ own great-grandson, Simon Wells.
Barbara Muschietti will produce this next version alongside Appian Way’s Jennifer Davisson and Leonardo DiCaprio, with a treatment already written by herself and her brother. For now, the details more or less end there, but we’re curious to see what shape this project takes.
As renowned and influential as Wells’ novel is, any film adaptation runs the risk of looking quaint in the current landscape of sci-fi cinema, raising the question of whether Andy Muschietti will attempt to modernize the story or stay faithful to the text. And seeing how the director has yet to make a feature film that isn’t in the horror genre, it’s hard to get a read on what his instincts would be for a project like this.
Keep watching this space for more, but as it stands, there’s a good chance that Muschietti will be moving forward on his live-action reboot of Attack On Titan before he gets round to filming The Time Machine.
