Disney is heading back into “The Black Hole.” The director and producer of Disney’s new “Tron: Legacy,” Joseph Kosinski and Sean Bailey, along with writer Travis Beacham are teaming up for the reinvention of the 1979 Sci-Fi film of the same name, which was the most expensive movie Disney had ever produced at the time. The Black Hole marks one of the first projects to be put into development by new studio chief Rich Ross.
The original followed a group of space explorers aboard the USS Palomino who come across a lost ship, the USS Cygnus, hovering outside a black hole. Inside the Cygnus, the explorers meet a scientist, commanding an army of faceless robots, who explains his crew deserted him as he planned to go through the black hole. The explorers soon discover that the robots are the remnants of the former crew and that the scientist has no intention of letting them leave.
The $26 million movie, which featured a menacing red robot named Maximilian and two smaller, friendlier robots, was Disney’s first PG-rated production and helped put the company on the special effects map. The details of the update are being kept secret, though the take does involve grounding the story in the science of a black hole, much more so than in the original. Maximilian also would return.
Check out the trailer and plot synopsis for the original 1979 film below.
Trailer For Disney’s The Black Hole (1979)
Synopsis for the 1979 Disney Sci-Fi film, THE BLACK HOLE:
It is the year 2130 A.D. An Earth exploratory ship, the USS Palomino, discovers a black hole with a lost ship, the USS Cygnus, just outside its event horizon. Deciding to solve the mystery of the Cygnus are: the Palomino’s Captain, Dan Holland; his First Officer, Lieutenant Charlie Pizer; journalist Harry Booth; scientist and ESP-sensitive Dr. Kate McCrae, whose father was the Cygnus’s First Officer; Dr. Alex Durant, the expedition’s civilian leader; and the robot known as V.I.N.CENT. The Palomino attempts a dangerous fly-by of the darkened ship. As they come within close range of it, the buffeting they experience (due to the black hole’s gravity) suddenly ceases. They bring more instruments to bear on the derelict, but do not even realize the gravity-free zone is artificial; slipping outside it, they are almost drawn into the black hole, an abyss from which no one can escape. Matters worsen when Reinhardt holds the crew captive, after realizing that they can help him reach his goal. The squad must now figure out a way to flee from Reinhardt — before it’s too late.
