june-2011

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wrote the screenplay for 2011’s The
Adjustment Bureau, an interpretation
of a Dick short story that centers on
fedora-wearing beings charged with
managing the fate of humans—was
hardly intimidated. “I sparked to it right
away,” says Nolfi , who also wrote scripts
for The Sentinel, The Bourne Ultimatum
and Ocean’s 12.
Despite that initial spark, Nolfi felt
that the original—a stripped-down
tale involving only one protagonist,
an insurance salesman—would need
an additional human element in order
to be compelling to viewers. So he added
a love story and had the masters of
fate try to thwart a love aff air between
a rising-star politician, David Norris
(Ma Damon), and a dancer, Elise Sellas
(Emily Blunt). “I saw it as a way of
telling science fi ction with romance,”
he says.
Nolfi also worried that Dick’s extreme
sci-fi landscape, which includes a scene
where everything is made of gray ash,
might put off some viewers. “The way
into this movie—that a bureau controls
the fate of humans—is such a crazy
idea that I felt a need to ground it into
reality as much as I could,” he says. “I
needed to make it as real as possible.”
To do this, Nolfi shot The Adjustment
Bureau on location in New York City,
rather than on a soundstage, which
Duel of the Fates Not every Philip K. Dick
adaptation makes it to the sci-fi pantheon. Here’s how
his fi lms have stacked up at the box offi ce.
US Box Offi ce Gross (millions of dollars)
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
1982
Blade
Runner
1990
Total
Recall
1995
Screamers
2001
Imposter
Is it a religious conceit?
A commentary on the U.S.
government? “Some people see
The Adjustment Bureau as a
metaphor for a totalitarian society,”
says director George Nolfi .
2002
Minority
Report
2003
Paycheck
created no shortage of logistical hurdles.
“Moving a full crew around the city is
not an easy feat,” says Nolfi . “We’d arrive
in the morning at the Circle Line Ferry,
bring on the equipment, shoot aboard
the boat and then move to Brooklyn for
the next scene. The desire for realism
drove that, but it was arduous.”
That desire was manifested in other,
more subtle ways. For instance, there
2006
A Scanner
Darkly
2007
Next
2011
The
Adjustment
Bureau