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Hal 9000 is one of the scariest robots in cinema, racking up a body count without a body. Of course, his film 2001: A Space Odyssey holds an ultimately optimistic view of humanity’s future, where transcendence awaits upon the mastery of our technological offspring. Colossus: The Forbin Project, released two years later, is the Hal 9000 sequence writ large, and with a far darker outcome. Directed by Joseph Sargent and based on a novel by Dennis Feltham Jones, it’s the depiction of a near future steeped in Cold War politics not unlike the underrated sequel to 2001. In Colossus, the American president reveals to the public that its safety in this time of conflict with the Ussr has been entrusted to a new kind of defense system, the brainchild of one Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden). The supercomputer Colossus can absorb and process more data than the greatest human genius and...

If the 1950s was the decade in which science fiction cinema began to mature and evolve, and the 1960s was the era where it started to experiment and stretch in new directions, then the 1970s was the period when the genre more or less went batshit insane.

The movies of the era continued to touch on socially and globally relevant themes, a trend that began 20 years earlier, while also continuing the literary pedigree and even more progressive concerns of the decade prior. But they did so in ever weirder ways, taking big swings (and often steep plunges as well) as many of the films of the decade aimed high but lacked the resources to match their ambitions.

Still, even the clunkier efforts of the ‘70s had their charms, and the creative success stories touched nerves in ways that the films of the previous decades hadn’t quite achieved. But almost...

Heady. Intellectual. Gassy. These are some of the terms applied to the wave of brain-based sci-fi started by 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and lasting until the arrival of more action led material, namely Star Wars (1977). Coming hot on the heels of Kubrick’s epic was Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), an awkwardly titled yet fascinating and suspenseful look at the perils of AI sentience. Damn you, computers. All the way to cyberhell.

Released by Universal in April, Colossus actually received good notices from critics who appreciated the film’s attempts at suspense crossed with intelligent discourse on the wages of war; audiences simply shrugged and moved on, denying the film the sequel it deserved. Oh well - Colossus standing alone is apropos considering the events that transpire.

We open on a Colorado mountainside, as Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden - The Young and the Restless) triple checks the gargantuan banks of...

Jim Knipfel Mar 4, 2019

We look at some of the lesser-remembered but influential evil artificial intelligence computer movies, Colossus and Demon Seed.

The ugly turns taken by assorted historical vectors in the late 1960s and early ‘70s—a string of high-profile assassinations, race riots, Manson, the Weather Underground, Vietnam, Nixon, a broader awareness of impending environmental collapse—made the 1970s a particular golden era for dystopian cinema. All the above mentioned forces and more gave us the likes of Soylent Green, No Blade of Grass, Thx-1138, Frogs, The Omega Man, and countless other visions of our doomed future. In and amongst all our other inescapable anxieties and paranoias was an increasing awareness of the role computers were playing in our daily lives.

Technoparanoid fears of dehumanization and power-mad machines can of course be traced back to the silent era in cinema, and much earlier than that in literature and legend, but...

This nearly forgotten Sci-fi masterpiece should have been a monster hit. For some reason Universal didn’t think that a computer menace was commercial — the year after 2001. The superior drama sells a tough concept: the government activates a defense computer programmed to keep the peace. It does exactly that, but by holding the world hostage while it makes itself a God above mankind.

Colossus: The Forbin Project

Region B Blu-ray

Medium Rare UK

1970 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date March 27, 2017 / Available from Amazon UK £6.99

Starring: Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, William Schallert, Leonid Rostoff, Georg Stanford Brown, Willard Sage, Alex Rodine, Martin Brooks, Marion Ross, Dolph Sweet, Robert Cornthwaite, James Hong, Paul Frees, Robert Quarry.

Cinematography: Gene Polito

Film Editor: Folmar Blangsted

Visual Effects: Albert Whitlock, Don Record

Original Music: Michel Colombier

Written by James Bridges, from a novel by D.F. Jones

Produced by Stanley Chase

Directed by Joseph Sargent...

"Men in Black" scribe Ed Solomon has been hired to pen a rewrite of "Colossus" at Universal Pictures. Will Smith is attached to star.

The story is a remake of the 1970's "Colossus: The Forbin Project", based on a book by D.F. Jones, and is something of a precursor to "The Terminator."

The story deals with a supercomputer being built for the government as a means of protection. The computer becomes sentient and decides that the most effective way it can act as protector is to assume complete control.

Blake Masters and Jason Rothenberg penned the earlier drafts which would use the previous film along with elements of the two subsequent "Colossus" novels.

Source: THR...

One minor classic, a worthwhile flick that arrived pre-Spielberg & Lucas blockbuster territory, is certainly the 1970 sci-fi film Colossus: The Forbin Project. This little sweethart is now seeing new life with a new screenwriter. Ed Solomon (Men in Black) set to rewrite the script of Colossus, which has Will Smith attached to headline. This means that Solomon will once again team on a Smith-starrer. Based on a book by D.F. Jones, the original film was the forerunner to the Terminator flicks and presents an all too believable depiction of the rise of the machines. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. put their defensive networks into the... Related posts: Shadow Of Colossus to be Penned by Hanna’s Seth Lochhead; Josh Trank Attached to Direct Will Smith in The Legend of Cain 14 New Solomon Kane Photos Will Smith To Star In “Flowers For Algernon” Remake? Will Smith and Jay-z Make...

The Hollywood Reporter today brings word that Ed Solomon, responsible for the first Men in Black film, has been hired by Universal Pictures to rewrite Colossus , an upcoming remake of 1970's Colossus: The Forbin Project , which has Will Smith attached to headline. Based on a book by D.F. Jones, the original film was a forerunner of movies like Terminator , introducing the idea of a government-built computer that becomes sentient and then takes control. Original plans for the screenplay by Blake Masters and Jason Rothenberg were to use the original's premise as a springboard and will incorporate two subsequent "Colossus" novels written by Jones to hatch a much broader film premise. After a brainiac designs a supercomputer for the government as a means of...

Coincidence or not: on the same day that we learn Universal has passed on the Dark Tower adaptation that Ron Howard, Akiva Goldsman and Brian Grazer were trying to make at Imagine Entertainment, we get word that another old Imagine project at Universal has new life through a new screenwriter. Years ago the company got the rights to remake the 1968 (released in '70) tech thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project -- a sort of 'computer develops sentience' thriller that paved the way for War Games and other films -- but for a very long time it has seemed basically dormant. Now it is back. Blake Masters (Law and Order: La) will pen a new take on the film in which "a genius creates a supercomputer put in charge of independently regulating the national defense of the United States. It's soon discovered the Russians have created a similar computer, and both machines...

Blake Masters (Law & Order: La) has signed on to rewrite a remake of the 1970 sci-fi film Colossus: The Forbin Project for Universal. There's no word on the timeline of Masters' re-telling (simply entitled Colossus), but director Joseph Sargent's original pic was set during the Cold War and centered on a pair of supercomputers (one belonging to the United States and the other belonging to Russia) that swap top secret national defense secrets with one another. As the story goes, the rival countries are forced to work together so as to stop the computers from taking control of their respective war arms. Per Variety, Brian Grazer will produce the film via Imagine Entertainment with Erica Huggins and David J. Collins on board as co-producers. As for Masters, the scribe has previously worked on television series' such as Rubicon and Brotherhood. He also penned a script for Universal's 2 Guns starring Vince Vaughn.

We just posted a story from Deadline about the Jason Rothenberg, the new writer of The Twilight Zone movie. If you read that article (and why haven’t you?) then you also saw us make mention of the fact that Rothenberg is a relative newcomer to the screenwriting game, who has several high-profile projects on the horizon.

One of those projects is Universal and Imagine Entertainment’s upcoming remake of Colossus: The Forbin Project, which Ron Howard is directing and Will Smith is reportedly attached to star in.

For those who are unaware, Colossus: The Forbin Project was a 1970s film directed by Joseph Sargent (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three). That film was based on the 1966 novel Colossus by Dennis Feltham Jones,…

Click to continue reading Will Smith Attached to ‘Colossus: The Forbin Project’ Remake...

It's been over three years since we last heard about Ron Howard's remake of the 1970 film Colossus: The Forbin Project, an adaptation of the 1966 sci-fi novel by Dennis Feltham Jones. But in the recent news about writer Jason Rothenberg scripting the adaptation of The Twilight Zone, Deadline included a second story unto itself. The writer is also adapting Colossus for Universal and Imagine Entertainment, but the real gem in the news is that Will Smith is attached to star in the story of the world's first-ever sentient computer and the misunderstood genius who gains power over the world due to its unprecedented abilities. Both the novel and the film are in the same vein as The Matrix and Terminator, but obviously these stories happened decades before those familiar films. In addition, the script will take cues from two additional novels that followed Jones' original story. This would mark the...

I think there is still a lot more to be seen from Bryce Dallas Howard, the daughter of director Ron Howard, and the completely ignored co-star of Terminator Salvation. Howard has already started showing a different side of herself as The Hollywood Reporter reveals she co-wrote a new script titled The Originals with Dane Charbeneau and Universal and Imagine Entertainment have already stepped in to pick it up as a potential feature for Ron Howard to direct. The script is described as an ensemble feature about a group of twentysomethings who reconvene for a weekend in New York after learning the teacher who shaped their childhoods has fallen into a mysterious coma. Apparently Dallas Howard came up with the idea over the past couple of years looking at it as a way of tackling the quarter-life crisis issues her contemporaries were dealing with. Howard and Charbeneau have been working on...

Terminator Salvation has been in theaters for over a week now, and it seems to have already been largely forgotten. Remember how much we looked forward to seeing it? It was a little like those similarly heady days, way back in March, when we were eager to see Watchmen. Ah, we were all so young then.

Despite the long summer days that have passed, I find myself still pondering Salvation. But I'm not thinking about the waste of a perfectly good Christian Bale, or continuing to boggle over the sadly inept action sequences. To be honest, I willed myself to forget most of it as soon as I was in the car. It seemed kinder to just let it go.

No, what I can't get over is how dead stupid SkyNet turned out to be. The evil, all-powerful threat to humanity that James Cameron introduced in 1984 turns out, in the fourth movie,...