According to Roland Emmerich, screenwriter Robert Rodat (whom we just told you was writing Warcraft for Sam Raimi) is laying the groundwork for Emmerich’s movie based on Isaac Asimov’s “The Foundation”.

Speaking to IGN Movies, the Director of Independence Day and 2012 said the project’s biggest hurdle was transforming a sprawling cosmic book series, which spans 500 years and features a large cast of characters, into a workable film narrative.

Emmerich said

“Rodat recommended combining characters, and that’s what we did and it worked really, really well in the context. And I think Asimov would have conceived this as a science-fiction trilogy or series from the very beginning, he would have done that, too, but he didn’t. So I think in spirit it’s totally Foundation but it has consolidated characters which go through the three movies.”

Emmerich said, they did not want to make “The Foundation” into a movie by drastically revising it, similar to what happened to another Asimov adaptation.

“I, Robot, I think, they kind of changed everything and the fans kind of hated the movie so I didn’t want to do that,” said Emmerich, referring to the Alex Proyas’ 2003 film. “On the other hand, The Foundation has kind of a similar problem. There’s all these short stories which later got combined in a book so in a way there is not one character to go through”

[RANT]

If you haven’t read the Foundation Trilogy, you can download the entire radio drama ‘FREE’ over at archive.org or you can hit the player below and stream the whole thing right here while you go on about your intertube surfing business. Enjoy!