Increasingly it appears that Twitter is becoming the go-to press release platform for the habitually lazy. So while I’m intrigued by Production Weekly’s ‘tweet’ late last night that legendary director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam) “plans to direct the indie sci-fi thriller “Isopod,” [and] production is scheduled to begin next month in the Carolinas,” I sort of wish they had given us more than 160 characters to work with. Luckily, I can bullshit with the best of them.
“Isopod.” Wikipedia tells me that isopods are an order of “peracarid crustaceans,” which apparently includes bugs like woodlice and pill bugs. Most isopods are parasitic, and some (like Cymothoa exigua) can even do really crazy-gross things like eat the tongues out of snapper fish and then replace their tongues with their own bodies. Is this what Levinson’s Isopod is going to be about? Probably not, but there’s no harm in us speculating!
The “Carolinas” are certainly as good a place as any to film a sci-fi thriller about nasty parasitic bugs, especially if they are also from outer space – a possibility that has been neither confirmed nor denied. Still, we must not rule out the possibility that the titular isopod is actually a metaphor for something entirely non-bug-related. Who are we to say whether or not Levinson’s film will be an elaborate allegory for humankind’s own parasitic relationship to the planet and the natural resources we have so thoughtlessly consumed?
Interestingly, Sony Pictures also ‘tweeted’ (twet?) just a month ago that Levinson would be helming Brother Jack, a biopic of human rights activist Jack Healey, which we reported at the time would be the director’s next project. Unfortunately, Production Weekly’s latest tweet seems to debunk that notion.
So, basing this story simply on information gleaned from America’s most cutting-edge news source, Twitter, we have learned that Levinson will either be tackling a heartwarming human rights-themed biopic or a mysterious sci-fi thriller possibly to feature woodlice. This is the future of journalism in action.
