Having brought Arrakis to life with his acclaimed adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, Denis Villeneuve will journey even further into iconic science fiction foundations with Rendezvous With Rama.Īlcon Entertainment, previously partnering with Villeneuve on “Prisoners” and “Blade Runner 2049,” has acquired film rights to Arthur C. Concept art of Rama by Lightfarm Studios.If its Cold War-era subplot - an increase in tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union over an armed confrontation in Honduras - did not initially seem to have aged well, it gains in credence in today's polarized world. Nominated for five Academy Awards, the film enjoyed modest success at the box office. The film benefited from intelligent, understated performances by Roy Scheider and Helen Mirren in the lead roles, with John Lithgow, whose stock had risen following his turn in the box-office hit Footloose earlier in the year, supporting as jovial engineer Curnow. Less well known is Peter Hymans' 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984), the adaptation of Clarke's sequel to 2001, 2010: Odyssey Two (1982).

While some commentators at the time criticized the film's glacial pacing and inscrutable ending, the film has stood the test of time, frequently appearing on critics' best-of lists.

The quintessential Clarke adaptation is, of course, Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), starring Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood as Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, the crew of the Discovery, a spacecraft bound for Jupiter to investigate a mysterious black monolith orbiting the planet. While it's far too early to speculate about the beginnings of a Ramaverse, it is clear there is ample scope for expansion. The novel won a slew of awards on its publication, including science fiction's highest honor, the Hugo Award, in 1974, and several sequels followed in collaboration with American author Gentry Lee. If Clarke's somewhat thin characterization left something to be desired, the sheer visceral appeal of exploring a new world in the confines of a spaceship was alluring to sci-fi fans. Related: Denis Villeneuve To Direct Rendezvous With Rama Adaptation On their arrival, the astronauts discover that Rama is an enormous alien spaceship in the shape of a cylinder, complete with a breathable atmosphere, land, and waterways inside. Set in the early twenty-second century, the film concerns the efforts of astronauts to intercept Rama, a mysterious, cigar-shaped object hurtling towards the inner Solar System.

If it never quite achieves the heights of 2001, Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama gets close.

Rendezvous with rama by arthur c clarke