Classic science fiction novels are having an odd little cultural renaissance: Syfy has been steadily working on its miniseries adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End since last fall, while Paramount is toying with the idea of filming The Stars My Destination. And now there’s word, via The Hollywood Reporter, that X-Men director Bryan Singer has been tapped to put together a film version of Robert A. Heinlein’s 1966 classic The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. (Suggestions that the pick-up was inspired by the recent cultural obsession with Fifty Shades Of Grey are too puerile to dignify here.)
The novel details a lunar colony’s attempts to forcibly emancipate itself from the governments of Earth, so as to better adhere to principles of self-determination, libertarianism, and, because this is a Bob Heinlein novel, polyamory. Singer, whose next film project is the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse, will produce the film for Fox, which recently acquired the rights to Heinlein’s book.