What Happened to COLOSSUS The Forbin Project?

so what ever happened to that strange and mysterious 1970s classic sci-fi film Colossus the foran project let's find out movies music and monsters danger danger hey guys Dan Monroe here talking about movies music and monsters oh man Colossus no joke this is one of those comfort movies that I put on probably at least once a month not only because it's super cool but because as a kid I always secretly knew that deep down this was really a sequel to Escape From the Planet of the Apes I mean how could it not be forbin was clearly an Escape From the Planet of the Apes you see he didn't really die at the end he survived and then built coloss to destroy the Apes yeah I know the two movies aren't related but that might just give you an insight as to how my mind worked when I was 13 I never really cared for all those damn dirty Apes well there you go way back in 1980 the amazing movie magazine sin fantastic announced this film Colossus the forbin project as the second greatest film of the decade only immediately following The Exorcist that my friends is one high ranking movie you know it's funny this is always been one of my personal sci-fi favorite flicks from the 70s and surprisingly I have to admit that whenever I mention it to somebody not too many people know what the heck I'm talking about I mean yeah I guess it wasn't a super big Financial Blockbuster like Jaws or The Exorcist but holy cow how can you call yourself a Sci-Fi fan if you've never seen Colossus at any rate there really isn't a lot of information out there about this classic sci-fi film so I had to do a lot of deep digging to find out whatever I could to bring it to you guys so grab hold of your world dominating computer and let's dive in for those of you who maybe haven't seen the film briefly Colossus the forbin project which was originally released as just the forbin project came out in 1970 and was directed by Joseph Sargeant with the Ultra Cool Eric Braden in the lead role of Dr Charles forbin he basically in good faith builds a computer designed to take the emotions and decisions about Warfare away from a slowly humans and put it in the hands of a critical thinking logical supercomputer that would hopefully have the welfare of human beings as it's top priority well let's just say that things didn't go exactly as planned as Colossus discovers a nearly identical second system named Guardian built by the Russians that together enslave humanity and take over the world it was actually much easier than I thought yes I'm sure it was and no we're not there yet but doesn't that make AI sound just that much more wonderful frankly I think AI sounds like a wonderful idea yeah you would the film was based on a novel by DF Jones simply called Colossus DF Jones actually worked with real computers in Britain during World War II and get this he actually knew about a realworld computer named Colossus which was at the heart of Britain's codebreaking complex at Bletchley Park there you see Colossus was real now as far as the production history of the film goes early on believe it or not the studio wanted either Gregory peek or Charlton hon to play the lead role but the producer Stanley Chase really insisted that he wanted a relatively unknown actor to play the part of Charles forbin so that's where Eric Braden came into the picture I got a call could I quickly fly to Los Angeles to Hollywood and do a screen test at Universal Studios for a film called Colossus the foran project and I remember the call came in said Lou waserman love the test wants you to play the lead in the picture and we did on stage 12 at Universal Studio and when you suddenly start on a film things change very quickly and then I did Colossus that's arguably the most pivotal moments of my career this is bizarre but Eric Braden's birth name was and I know I'm going to slaughter this Hans gust and that was the name he was currently using at the time while trying to break into Hollywood one of the studio Executives from Universal let him know in no uncertain terms that nobody would be allowed to star in an American Film if they had a German name wow like really freaking Studio Executives anyway it was at this point that Hans Gast instantly became Eric Braden then began the search for a name I took the first part of the village I came from in Germany called Breen B raen and arus uh northern European name could be British could be anything and L wasman they liked it and I okay but I felt very strange about it for a long time and wow did this guy have a huge role in soap operas now that Eric Braden was hired to play the lead that allowed Gregory pek to star in iwalk the line and Charlton hon to take his contractually oblig supporting role in Beneath the Planet of the Apes Eric Braden was just perfect as Charles Forman he was just so scientifically calm cool and collected I always thought he would have made a really good James Bond the film also featured a love interest with Susan Clark and anything that William schelert co-stars in is guaranteed to be a good time and the guy who played the president awesome very presidential but I was really surprised like later in life to learn that and don't tell anyone but Richie's mother from Happy Days helped to build Colossus yep even Mary and Ross had a pretty cool part got to love that this is really interesting there was a very young filmmaker on set almost every single day of production observing and his name was Steven Spielberg you know one thing I always really thought was really awesome about this film was how unbelievably realistic that some of the sets were and some of the computers were well little did I know at the time but that's exactly what some of them really were real computers apparently when the head Executives over at a company called controlled dat Corporation or CDC found out that Universal Studios was planning a major motion picture featuring a computer well they saw their chance for some free public exposure and they agreed to supply free of charge tons of real computer equipment and the technicians to oversee and maintain the systems during filming I mean talk about a colossal streak of good luck see what I did there colossal don't quit your day job that giant outdoor Colossus control center was actually filmed at the Lawrence Hall of Science Museum at the University of California in Berkeley and even though this film really had a relatively low budget for the time surprisingly all the scenes that took place in Rome were actually filmed in Rome and then near the end end of the film Colossus demands that forbin create a voice for the supercomputer and this is super cool a while back I did a deep dive into the history of the 1953 version of The War of the Worlds and talked about a voice artist named Paul freeze who did one of the opening narrations for the film well I just recently discovered that not only is he the voice of the ghost host at the Disney parks Haunted Mansion but get this he was also uncredited the voice of Colossus and it was an awesome voice I mean come on how cool is that super cool the soundtrack to This film by Michael colber was really really strange with a lot of odd uses of pixicat strings with a cold and almost computer likee motionless score but it's a great soundtrack to play during the Halloween season well the originally titled the forbin project premiered on April 4th 1970 at Cinema rendevu in New York City and not surprisingly only grossed a little over $7,000 in its opening week I'm not really sure why but I can tell you one thing the movie poster certainly left a lot to be desired also and nothing against Eric Braden but I think the film might have done better with a major Hollywood star like Charlton hon in the lead role who knows at any rate due to its poor box office performance the film was withdrawn and then re-released 4 months later at the pigwood theater in Los Angeles this time called Colossus the forbin project it then eventually ended up up back in New York in October on just under 40 screens grossing a somewhat disappointing $150,000 ranking seventh at the US box office and in total the film only pulled in around 300,000 that's a little shabby even for 1970 but don't let it get you down this film was freaking awesome and still is mostly because of me obviously now critically at least for the New York release Colossus received unanimously great reviews The New York Times said the film is full of surprising moments of humor and intelligence an unprecedented science fiction classic which could be considered almost a perfect movie David Kerr film critic for the Chicago Reader also really enjoyed the film calling it an above average science fiction Extravaganza with a somewhat less than effective ending okay not to do the spoiler alert thing but spoiler alert the film does have a pretty down ending what do you mean I won which you know what I really appreciated at the time and still do I mean why does every movie have to have a glorious well-rounded happy ending I I mean if anything I'd have to say that the ending of this film is probably exactly what would happen if some super computer really did take over the world now as far as what happened to a lot of the costumes and props from the film keep in mind the original computers were returned to CDC but other than that I really didn't find anything except one really cool prop the remote control device that forbin uses at the beginning of the film to actually activate Colossus does still exist and here it is now I'm not sure exactly where this is whether it's on display somewhere or in a private collection but it is super cool to know that there's at least one part of Colossus that does still exist today Colossus the forbin project was released on DVD in 2004 and finally a gorgeous remastered highdefinition widescreen Blu-ray version of the film was released in February of 2018 but guys trust me if you've never seen this film do yourself a favor and check it out it's one of the in my opinion greatest sci-fi dramas of the 1970s in fact if you guys want to watch it like right now I'm pretty sure you can because the film I believe is in public domain Main and available at the internet archive Link in the description well Colossus came and Colossus went but that's certainly wasn't the end of this amazing sci-fi classic the original Colossus author DF Jones wrote an entire Trilogy based on this concept Colossus the fall of Colossus and Colossus and the crab crab not really sure why Colossus would go after Seafood but who knows maybe he wiped all the humans out the last two books were published nearly a decade after the original novel was written but now I got to go digg in and find those other two books so I know what the heck happened to mankind sort of interesting in the movie one of the attempts by the humans to regain control of Colossus is to try to overload the Machine by feeding it too much data now this sequence was only in the movie it wasn't n in the original novel but when the author saw the film he put that storyline as a major plot Point into the sequel novel The Fall of Colossus now back in 2007 imagine entertainment and Universal Studios confirmed that they were working on a remake titled Colossus to be directed by Ron Howard Brian Glazer was set to produce the screenplay again was about a government-built supercomputer that becomes sentient and takes over the world but nothing really happened for a couple of years until October of 2010 when the project moved forward with the announcement that Will Smith would be starring in the lead role I don't know maybe I mean he was great in Independence Day but I wasn't really a fan of the I Am Legend remake but that's what they were going for and in 2011 Universal announced new writers on the project then in 2013 Universal announced even more writers on the project and then nothing that was it gone I don't know sounds to me like a big colossal waste of time eh eh okay enough already this is super cool apparently James Cameron was such a a huge fan of this movie Colossus that he often stated that this film not only influenced his screenplay for the Terminator in 1984 but was the specific reason why he cast Eric Braden in the role of John Aster in Titanic Colossus the forbin project not only remains near and dear to all of us nerdy sci-fi Geeks but also launched an entire DEC of Science Fiction Classics throughout the course of the 70s like the incredible melting man Damnation Alley future world the Omega Man Logan's Run soilent Green Mad Max The Andromeda Strain and so many more we could be here all day but that my friends is the topic of another video I really hope you guys enjoyed that deep dive into Colossus the forban project and if you did and you like this kind of stuff please consider subscribing to the channel I've got a whole bunch of new videos coming up really soon that I know you guys are just going to dig as always if anybody has any questions drop them down in the comments and I will try my best to answer them for you and please feel free to stop back anytime as we continue our conversation on movies music and monsters movies music and monsters danger danger [Music]

Channel: Dan Monroe / Movies, Music & Monsters

Views: 87,460

Keywords: dan monroe, classic television, lost in space, robot, colossus, forbin project, eric braeden

Id: 5CgUoszWScE

Length: 18min 10sec (1090 seconds)

Published: Wed May 22 2024