Bryan Singer attached to Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Currently hard at work on X-MEN: APOCOLYPSE, Bryan Singer has added a new project to his upcoming slate; an adaption of the classic Robert A. Heinlein sci-fi novel “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”.

THR reports that Fox just picked up the movie rights for the book but doesn’t say whether Singer will direct or not. Based on the synopsis, I’d say this could be right up his alley.

Here’s the book synopsis via amazon.

It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of the former Lunar penal colony against the Lunar Authority that controls it from Earth. It is the tale of the disparate people–a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic–who become the rebel movement's leaders. And it is the story of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to this inner circle, and who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.

Said to be Heinlein’s finest work, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” has had several attempts made at adapting it. Dreamworks gave it a shot with a script by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio and Harry Potter producer David Heyman was attached to the project when it resided at Phoenix Pictures. Neither projects were able to get off the ground and the rights then reverted back to Heinlein's estate.

Marc Guggenheim, executive producer of Arrow, will be tackling the script which will go by the name UPRISING.

I have to say, I really hate when studios take a unique book title and change it to something generic. UPRISING could mean anything or be any type of movie. “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” on the other hand, THAT sounds like a film I’d want to see. We’ve seen this type of behavior before; EDGE OF TOMORROW was originally “All You Need is Kill”, HANCOCK was originally “Tonight, He Comes”, and even taking the “Of Mars” out of JOHN CARTER seemed like a silly move to me. Do studios really think we’re so stupid that we can’t wrap our brains around a slightly unusual title? Wait, don’t answer that; I’m depressed enough already.

Bryan Singer’s X-MEN: APOCOLYPSE is at the height of pre-production now but we’ll be seeing it in theaters on May 27th, 2016.