Argentine filmmaker Damián Szifrón, who rose to international prominence with the Cannes premiere of Relatos salvajes (Wild Tales), which became Argentina’s top box office draw ever and went on to compete for the Best Foreign Picture Oscar, has made it to Hollywood.
Szifrón, according to a report released yesterday and distributed by trade publications, has been hired to write the screenplay for the movie remake of the worldwide TV hit The Six-Million-Dollar Man, which starred Lee Majors as ace test-pilot Steve Austin, “irreparably” injured in an accident.
His bosses, however, decide that Steve Austin is irreplaceable, and since the technology is available, they rebuild him from scratch with artificial body parts and limbs, which gives him the unequalled power of a man-machine, the first “Bionic Man”).
The film version will star Mark Wahlberg as Steve Austin.
Based on Martin Caidin’s novel Cyborg, The Six-Million-Dollar Man (broadcast in Latin America as El hombre nuclear) ran for five seasons from 1974 to 1978, winning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor for Lee Majors in 1977, and a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Film Sound Editing for a Series in 1976 and 1977. The series later won Lee Majors a TV Land Superest Super Hero award in 2003.
Developing a cult following in the US and the world over, The Six-Million-Dollar Man had countless tie-in products, including a comic book and a lunch box. It was toward the end of the series, and Majors had decided to change the way Austin looked, adding a moustache that proved highly unpopular.
“I am thankful and honoured (to have been commissioned the script),” Szifrón said. “The themes around which this project is built allow the creation of an action-scifi movie as well as an espionage thriller. I have great expectations,” he said.
Born in 1975, Szifrón was a toddler when the series started airing in Argentina, but he became a follower years later on network television reruns and on cable TV.
“I was glad to learn that, as a child, Damián was a big fan of The Six-Million-Dollar Man. He told us how he envisaged the modern-day version of the story, and Mark Wahlberg and Steven Levinson were very enthusiastic about Szifrón writing the screenplay,” The Weinstein Company’s Bob Weinsten said.
Eventually, the Six-Million-Dollar Man became so big that it gave way to the creation of The Bionic Woman, the female version of the Steve Austin character, telling the story of Jaime Sommers, a former girlfriend of Austin’s, played by actress Lindsay Wagner.
Herald with Télam