You’re traveling through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. Rod Serling’s mind, that is, because the Twilight Zone creator is getting his own biopic.
Richard Kelly, the director of cult classic Donnie Darko, is helming a new film about Serling’s life, according to Geeks Worldwide. Kelly is writing the screenplay for the film himself, while Jason Michael Berman, Kevin Turen, Matthew Lindner, and Brian Young will produce. The movie has the potential to be a bit of a comeback for Kelly, as the filmmaker has only directed two films in the 18 years since Donnie Darko’s release, and none in the past decade. Each of his past two films: Southland Tales and The Box, were widely regarded as critical and commercial failures.
As for Serling, his life certainly seems ripe for a movie adaptation. The upstate New York native fought in the Phillippines during WWII (which explains the multitude of WWII and military-based Twilight Zone episodes), where he earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He also trained as a boxer and worked as a parachute-tester before getting into show business. As the creator of The Twilight Zone, Serling was revolutionary for slyly injecting social justice morals and liberal politics into the show’s sci-fi and fantasy plots as a way to sneak around his corporate censors.
There’s no word yet on when the Serling biopic could hit theaters, but when and if it does, you can bet we’ll be there to pay tribute to one of sci-fi’s greatest minds.
