By author J.G. Ballard
With one long, tremendous journey almost behind him on one production – Splice – Vincenzo Natali forges ahead on another long-gestating project that’s close to his heart: An adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s “High Rise.”
“That’s another decade-long challenge,” Natali, also the director of Cube, tells Shock Till You Drop. “Other filmmakers have attempted to make it and failed. It’s a very frightening, disturbing, transgressive and cool book written by one of my favorite authors. If we can make it, it’ll be incredible. It’s set in this enormous high rise, a vertical city. And it’s about the society that lives in there, this hermetic environment collapses. It’s a dangerous movie and not cheap. Two difficult things to combine.”
Published in 1975, the novel, as Natali says, is set in a high rise where the occupants gradually divide themselves into class structures and bloody battles break out from floor to floor to gain dominance. Nicolas Roeg almost turned it into a film in the ’70s.
Ballard also penned “Crash” which was made into a film by David Cronenbberg.
Splice, meanwhile, is poised to make its Sundance premiere next week. Stay tuned for a full interview with Natali soon!
Source: Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor
