Cyber-chronicler Douglas Rushkoff's first book of fiction, The Ecstasy Club, has been optioned by Dimension, a division of Miramax, for a mid-six-figure deal. Slated to be produced by Cathy Konrad and directed by Breck Eisner, (son of Michael Eisner), the film will mark the first time a work published by one of the new digitally-oriented publishers, in this case HarperEdge, has been tapped by Hollywood as big-screen material. The book is due to hit stores this week.
Though many are unfamiliar with the work of Breck Eisner, after seeing a sci-fi short made by him, Rushkoff is hopeful that he's actually talented. "I doubt he would get it if he wasn't as famous as he was, but I don't think it's because [the Disney chief] was saying, 'Hire my son.'"
Rushkoff believes Eisner's could be an appropriate sensibility because, although in the end there's nothing sci-fi about The Ecstasy Club, "The people in it believe there's a lot sci-fi things going on."
"It's a sort of cyber-psychedelic scene - kind of a rave/Mondo world - and a lot of people in that world believe lots of weird things. The kids in the book believe there's an L. Ron Hubbard figure that they believe is traveling through time, reducing the rate of worldwide novelty, so they're out to try to stop him." The cult that this character leads is called Cosmotology.
Acknowledging the fear that anyone tackling as feisty an organization as Scientology might feel, Rushkoff says he feels more comfortable taking a critical stand against most things when writing fiction, a big reason for his switch from nonfiction. "I really wanted someone to deflate the self-importance and naivete of the scene, without attacking the sweet, naive people that are a part of it," Rushkoff says.
Rushkoff seems a little defensive when it comes to the criticism his nonfiction has taken for being spineless. "I don't like to be mean to anyone in my writing, so Cyberia, Media Virus, and Playing the Future come off a bit Pollyanna-ish, because I'm not taking anyone to task. I'm saying what works for me and how that can be massaged. In fiction, I felt like I could take a much harder critical look."
In the case of The Ecstasy Club, Rushkoff seems to be battling the paranoia that often moves within the digital world. "It's the first true cyberculture satire. Rather than it being an earnest hacker's look at cyberculture, it's a look at the social scene and how silly, bizarre, and paranoid it all gets.... You can't escape who you are."
How long will those ready for a slice of cyberdelic reassurance on the silver screen have to wait for the film? "You can never count on anything," says Eamon Dolan, Rushkoff's editor at HarperEdge, who says there is no timeline for the film production. Troubling Side of Tech, Faith Convergence
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