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Nov 9, 2009 05:11 PM
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Rumor has it Will Smith's getting a brain upgrade, as the star of a new movie adaptation of Daniel Keyes' Flowers For Algernon, the novel that's so iconic it's practically become its own genre.
Pretty much every television show has done a Flowers For Algernon episode at some point, featuring miraculous technology that boosts your intelligence — and highlights the problems that go along with it. According to Wikipedia, this short story and novel have already been adapted eight times, into movies, stage musicals, plays, radio plays and more.
Movie news site Pajiba reports that Smith is set to play Charlie, the mentally disabled man who undergoes an experimental surgery that boosts his intelligence to genius level. (Algernon is the lab mouse who undergoes the procedure first.) Unfortunately, becoming a mega-genius doesn't do much for Charlie's relationships with everyone else. According to Pajiba's anonymous sources, Smith's frequent collaborator Gabriele Muccino (who directed Seven Pounds and Pursuit of Happyness) may be directing this one as well. Just as long as it doesn't end with Smith climbing into a bath with a jellyfish:
In any case, this is definitely an unsubstantiated rumor from a random website. So, you know, take it with several bucket fulls of salt, and a few jellyfish. [Pajiba]
Send an email to Charlie Jane Anders, the author of this post, at charliejane@io9.com.
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