Roland Emmerich talks foundation

It's almost exactly a year since the news broke that Roland Emmerich, your favourite destroyer of national landmarks, was set to adapt Isaac Asimov's Foundation for the screen. At that time there was no writer attached, but it's now coming to light via MTV that Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan, Warcraft) is delivering his script later this week.

Emmerich, oh surprise of surprises, also told MTV that he plans to film his three films (one for each of the first Foundation Trilogy: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation) in 3D, using the Avatar technology. "It has to be done all CG because I would not know how to shoot this thing in real," spake the director. "I think now everybody who does bigger movies has to shoot them in 3-D. I think there's no way around it. I was on the set of Avatar and I saw how it worked and I really thought, 'That's the ultimate way of making movies.'"

Plus, "if you do a movie in 3-D, you can ask for more money and that's the trick"!

There are seven books in Asimov's extended series. Emmerich's three involve psychohistorian Hari Selden's setting up the Foundation itself on the planet Terminus, dedicated to the creation of the Encyclopaedia Galactica, to preserve the sum of all human knowledge through and beyond the collapse of the galactic empire. Universal threat comes in the form of super mutant psychic The Mule, and if the premise is more cerebral than action-packed, there's still probably enough galactic warfare to keep Emmerich in pixelated explosions.

MTV have promised more from Emmerich in the near future, so stay tuned.

/Empire Online/