Emmerich gets next Isaac Asimov film adaptation

Sony’s Columbia Pictures won an auction late yesterday for adaptation rights to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, the ground breaking science fiction book trilogy. Roland Emmerich has been attached to produce and direct the eventual film project.

The series of eight short stories was originally published in Astounding Magazine starting in 1942, and is described as a complex saga about humans scattered on planets throughout the galaxy, who are living under the rule of a Galactic Empire. A psycho-historian who can scientifically read the future sees an imminent empire collapse, and works to save the knowledge of mankind for the future.

The film will again pair Emmerich and Sony together, who just completed work on the soon-to-be-released disaster flick 2012, about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world, forcing the only survivors to struggle against the dangers left. That film stars John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt and Thandie Newton. Emmerich is also attached to a Fantastic Voyage, which Fox is producing.