Thanks to a century or so of propaganda from Thomas Edison and his lackeys, many people aren’t very familiar with Nikola Tesla or the various scientific discoveries he made. Luckily, Christopher Nolan’s 2005 film, The Prestige, can teach us everything we need to know about the man. For instance, he once tried to invent a teleportation machine that would actually create perfect duplicates of whatever it was supposed to teleport. Also, he was a chameleon-like rock star who would occasionally adopt different personas, like Aladdin Sane, Ziggy Stardust, and the Thin White Duke.
Of course, some people who probably work for Edison will tell you that The Prestige was fictional, and Tesla wasn’t really David Bowie, but Deadline is reporting that a new Tesla biopic is in the works that should help clear up all of this confusion. The project comes from Marjorie Prime director Michael Almereyda, and it will reportedly focus on Tesla’s life in America (he was born in Serbia) and “his struggles working for Edison” before he broke off and started doing mad-scientist work on his own. The film will also feature Tesla’s “encounters with other historical giants of the era,” so hopefully that means it’ll have a Walk The Line-style parade of famous people for Tesla to point out and refer to by their full names. “Hello, J.P. Morgan. How do you feel about alternating current?”