When Douglas Adams was still alive, he made several attempts to turn the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series into a movie, and he had a hard time doing this. Mostly, this is because the series just doesn’t resemble the structure that movies require, such as a distinguished beginning, middle, and end. Therefore, any such attempt would probably require fairly significant changes to the story. While I obviously trusted Douglas to get this right, I was initially very concerned when I heard that they were going to proceed with the movie after his passing away.

The official movie website just posted a self-interview of the screenwriter, Karey Kirkpatrick. After reading this, I am pretty optimistic about the outcome of the movie again. Karey worked on Chicken Run before, although I am not sure if this qualifies him for writing the screenplay for HHGG. He was however a big Monty Python fan growing up, and one of his quotes about Life of Brian (my favorite movie!!!) is pretty much exactly what I always say about it:

So it was important to me that that intelligence remains at the epicenter of the piece. It’s what I love about Python’s “Life of Brian.” That movie is just a hair’s breadth away from being viable theology.'

I’m a little more concerned about the directors, Hammer and Tong. While they sound like they are on the same page and overall a good fit, they appear to have only directed commercials and music videos so far, and this will be their first feature film.

And of course, here’s the obligatory Slashdot discussion about this topic.

Whatever the outcome, I can’t wait to see this film!