Flyboys producer Dean Devlin told Coming Soon at the San Diego Comic-Con that his long-gestating sci-fi adventure "Isobar" will start shooting at the end of October or beginning of November under the direction of Peter Winther.
"Well, 'Isobar' was the film that originally brought Roland Emmerich from Germany to the United States back in 1990 and at the time it was going to be a $90 million movie...Roland asked me to write the script, or rewrite the script. Before I even handed in my draft, the studio hired somebody else to write a different script. Well, when the two scripts came out, Roland said, 'I'll do Dean's script, but I won't do the other script.' They said, 'You'll do the other script and that's it.' And Roland quit the picture, and everyone was shocked. They said, 'Why? You know, he's getting this big break and he's quitting the picture.' And he said, 'Well, I don't want to make a $90 million failure.' And he walked off the movie, and he and I enjoyed a nice 12-year partnership making movies. Later... we were able to rescue the script out of bankruptcy and have been developing it ever since, we raised the money and we're going to start shooting at the end of this year. And the irony is the man who's going to direct it was Roland's assistant when he was originally going to direct it back in 1990."
He added that the story has evolved over the years. "It's evolved, but I mean the central concept is still a world that has no air. And all cities are now underground, with forced air. And the story centers on the first luxury liner underground train ride from Los Angeles to Tokyo, and, of course, something goes horribly wrong."
