December 5, 2005
Robot Uprising Coming to a Theater Near You
A recent Carnegie Mellon graduate from the Robotics Institute has published a tongue-in-cheek look at robots that take over the earth. While I haven't read it, I understand that Paramout has bought the movie rights already.
Posted by elkaim at December 5, 2005 7:43 PMMany a book idea has been hatched at the bar of the Squirrel Hill Cafe (aka the Squirrel Cage), but Wilson's is one of the few that actually survived the next day's hangover. He and some friends were griping about robot stereotypes in movies (the emotionless evil of Hal from "2001: A Space Odyssey"; the self-repairing modular robot in "Terminator 3"), and thought it would be funny to write a book taking the stereotypes seriously.
He pitched the idea to a book agent in April 2004 and started writing late that summer while working for Intel in Seattle. He finished it by January and then started focusing on his graduate thesis, which he defended in September before being awarded his robotics doctorate.
Wilson's agent sold the movie rights to Paramount before the book was even finished, and the screenplay is being written by two writer-actors from Comedy Central's "Reno 911!," Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. Wilson said he's "really excited" about the movie, since it is supposed to be a spoof of robot movies, like his book.
Wilson, an Oklahoma native who moved to Pittsburgh to start his graduate work in 2000, is still primarily a scientist, not a book or movie writer. His specialty within robotics is designing smart houses to aid the elderly and infirm, which informed several parts of the "Uprising" book.