Philip K. Dick at the Movies
What's New in Movies and Videos
- Recurrent scene in PKD's movies. All of the films based on Philip K. DIck's stories have a common scene. Click here to find out what it is.
Box-Office Movies in Chronological Order Release
- Blade Runner (1982). Based on the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". Directed by Ridley Scott with Harrison Ford and Darryl Hannah. Followed by a DVD release of the Director's Cut (1992) and a limited theatricall and DVD release of The Final Cut (2007). Go the movie page
- Total Recall (1990). Based on the short story "We can Remember it for you Wholesale". Directed by Paul Verhoeven with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone. Go the movie page
- Barjo (Confessions d'un Barjo) (1992). Based on the mainstream novel "Confessions of a Crap Artist". Direted by Jerome Boivin with Richard Boeringer and Hippolyte Girardot. Not available on DVD, VHS only. Go to the movie page
- Screamers (1995). Based on the short story "Second Variety". Directed by Christian Duguay with Peter Wellers. Go to the movie page
- Impostor (2002). Based on the short story of the same name. Directed by Gary Fleder with Gary Sinise. Go to the movie page
- Minority Report (2002). Based on the short story of the same name. Directed by Steven Spielberg with Tom Cruise. Go to the movie page
- Paycheck (2003). Based on the short story of the same name. Directed by Jon Woo with Ben Afflec and Uma Thurman. Go to the movie page
- A Scanner Darkly (2006). Based on the novel of the same name. Directed by Richard Linklater. With Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder. Go to the movie page
- Next (2006). Based on the short story "The Golden Man". Directed by Lee Tamahori, with Nicholas Cage and Jessica Biel. Go to the movie page
- Your Name Here (2008), unauthorized biopic. Directed by Matthew Wilder. With Bill Pullman, Taryn Manning, Harold Perrineau. The film was presented at the New York Film Festival in 2008
- Radio Free Albemuth (2008). Shot in 2007 this low budget movie based on the novel of the same name. Crowdsourcing was used to finance a limited theartrical relase. The movie may only be released on DVD. Directed by John Alan Simon with Alanis Morissette. More information here.
- The Adjustment Bureau (2011) based on the 1954 short story The Adjustment Team with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. George Nolfi (Ocean's Twelve, The Sentinel) is the screenwriter and director. The Adjustment Bureau is described as a sci-fi romance about a congressman in love with a ballet dancer who discovers that Earth is one big sound stage controlled by strange outside forces. The movie has been released in March 2011.
- Total Recall (2012) Remake of the 1990 movie starring Arnold Schwartzenegger, based on the short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale". Directed by Len Wiseman. With Colin Farrell, Bokeem Woodbine, Bryan Cranston.
- The Man in the High Castle. Miniseries, written by Frank Spotnitz (producer of X-Files), directed by David Semel and produced for Amazon by Ridley Scott, director of Blade Runner. Pilot episode released on NEtflix in January 2015 was followed by the full first season in the fall of the same year and became the most popular series on Amazon.
Upcoming Movies
- The Owl in the Daylight authorized biopic, with Paul Giamatti
- Flow My Tears The Policeman Said: Halcyon Co. co-founders and co-CEOs Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson, who picked up first-look rights to sci-fi author Philip K. Dick's estate in 2007, have selected his 1974 novel "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" as the first of his works they will adapt for the screen.
- Ubik. Michel Gondry, French movie director, has been picked to make a movie out of Philip K. Dick’s masterpiece, Ubik. Gondry, who has directed many documentaries and videos, is better known for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a somewhat dickian storyline about erasing and implementing memories in people’s brain (like in Total Recall). His more recent movie was an adaptation of The Green Hornet. Shooting may not start before the end of year 2011.
- The King of the Elves (2012). Based on the only fantasy short story writtem by PKD, this will be an Pixar/Disney animated feature. The story follows an average man living in the Mississippi Delta, whose reluctant actions to help a desperate band of elves leads them to name him their new king. Joining the innocent and endangered elves as they attempt to escape from an evil and menacing troll, their unlikely new leader finds himself caught on a journey filled with unimaginable dangers and a chance to bring real meaning back to his own life. Note: this movie project was abandonned.
Documentaries
-
The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick (2006) by Mark Steensland
As fascinating and unnerving as any of Dick's fiction. The animated segments, as well as a pulsating sci-fi soundtrack, evoke a tone of paranoia that seems to mirror Dick's worldview. GOSPEL is clearly a labor of love, designed to appeal to fans and novices alike
-
The Penultimate Truth (2006)
This original documentary is built around an investigation by two detectives who go through piles of boxes of "evidence" and hours of taped interviews to attempt to (literally, on a bulletin board) pin down who Philip K. Dick was. We discover PKD through interviews with people who knew him well throughout his life, from high school friends to people who were around him at the time of his death. There are extensive accounts by his former wives, Kleo Mini, Ann Dick and Tessa Dick, by his writers friends, Ray Nelson, KW Jeter, Tim Powers, Paul Williams and his friends/girl friends Doris Sauter, Joan Simpson, his therapist and more.... The most fascinating are the extensive clips, never seen before, of his Metz Speech in 1977 (a speech delivered on a monotonous tone by reading from typed text). Interesting too is a visit to the San Rafael house, decribed in A Scanner Darkly, where the famous break-in took place and never before seen pictures (except on the Total-Dick Head blog for a couple of them). And of course there is extensive discussion of his 1974 mystical experience. A very interesting movie for the PKD fans but also for a general audience.
Books about Philip K. Dick at the Movies
- Counterfeit Worlds (2006) by Brian Robb
This is the definitive history of all the adaptations of Dick's work, not only the films but also TV series, radio plays, even operas and computer games. Beginning with a concise biography of Dick, acclaimed writer Brian J. Robb looks at the evolution and production of each project in depth, along the way uncovering a wealth of new information, including the stories behind the fascinating unmade film Ubik (with a screenplay by Dick himself), and the stillborn sequels to Total Recall and the legendary Blade Runner. The book has also a complete bibliography. This is a must-have book for PKD fans and those who want to know more about him.
- Future Imperfect (2007) by Jason West.
Students and general readers interested in science-fiction literature and film should find this an incredibly valuable work, as should film enthusiasts concerned with the issue of adaptation itself. Author Jason Vest is an expert in both American literature and the science-fiction genre. This marks the first book-length investigation of Dick's influence on the science-fiction genre, and also includes some of the more extended criticism on several seminal science fiction films .

