Hollywood mills grind slowly sometimes;
Three years ago, it was reported that Simon Stålenhag's book Passagen, The Electric State in English, would become a major film in the United States.
Recently, the same news came again, but now there was also a star in the lead role, Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger things, and a large company in the picture.
But Swedish Stålenhag, which has had time to make a new book since then, has become a bit more refined:
- Was I not refined even then?
I remember taking it very easy.
But I'm a little more hopeful this time;
last time Tales from the Loop had not been done, and it did.
Once they started, it went fast.
It is both a fast and extremely slow industry.
Meet with enthusiasm
Not all Swedish artists have given rise to acclaimed American TV series such as Tales from the loop, and not all make American star directors like the Russo brothers (the Avengers movies) rejoice and believe in a future for cinema - as they do when they talks about the upcoming Stålenhag film.
- This is fantastic news for us, and for the world cinema audience, soon we will have a cinema market again!
But if the film is released, it will probably not be until 2022 that filming can start.
- You should not say anything until you are on the red carpet, says Simon Stålenhag.
Current with new book
In the meantime, he has made a new book, The Labyrinth, which, inspired by the Trump era, is if possible even more dystopian than the previous ones.
- This book reflects the feeling that humanity is like the Titanic on its way to an iceberg.
We try to turn to avoid it, but it does not work.
And if we manage to give way, an even bigger iceberg will appear there!
In the Labyrinth, the earth has become uninhabitable after a catastrophe, and the few survivors live underground.
-It is like a climate crisis of God's grace, even if this one comes from space, and the book is about how we humans handle the consequences of it, says Stålenhag.