While talking to director Brad Anderson about his upcoming film Vanishing On 7th Street, I got a chance to ask him about his upcoming projects. One project he revealed was Concrete Island, which intrigues me for two reasons. The first, is that he’ll be teaming up with Scott Kosar. Kosar was the writer on Anderson’s film The Machinist. The second reason this project has me intrigued is because Christian Bale is set to star. So essentially, The Machinist team is getting back together for Anderson’s Concrete Island, which is based on the J.G. Ballard novel of the same name. As for the plot, it goes something like this:
A twisted adaptation of Robinson Crusoe, the story’s protagonist, Robert Maitland, a wealthy architect, finds himself stranded in a manmade ‘island’ (a section of fenced-off wasteland in the middle of a motorway intersection) between the Westway and M4 Motorway in West London, forced to survive on only what is in his crashed Jaguar and what he is able to find. As his condition degrades, it soon becomes difficult to determine whether Maitland is finding sanity or watching his mind fall apart as he finds companions on the island and eventually decides to remain there and forsake his former life.
It sounds kind of like The Machinist, a film I loved. I’m very excited at the prospect of this. The Machinist was a great film and the idea of that team joining up to make a new and similar film certainly has me interested. Here’s what Brad had to say about it:
“I’ve got another project that Scott Kosar, the writer of The Machinist is writing. It’s based on J.G. Ballard’s novel called Concrete Island. It’s an urban survival story that Christian Bale is attached to be in.