11 Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Movies and Counting

January 9th, 2008 by Jon Roth

Tagged as: Movie News, Movie Posters, Movie-related

Philip Kindred Dick, aka Philip K. Dick, aka PKD, was often considered a science fiction writer that was way ahead of his time. He was critically acclaimed and won several writing awards, but was not particularly successful commercially for most of his career. Much of his writing was dystopic and unnerving, but filmmakers have found a fair bit of commercial success with film adaptations of his writing, starting with Blade Runner. (PKD died during the production.)

There have been nine movies made from PKD’s writing (excluding documentaries), and two more are in the works. One of my fave Rock chicks, Alanis Morrissette, is going to be Radio Free Albemuth in 2008. (But you oughta know, don’t expect her to go down on you in the theater. Don’t get it? Never mind.) Owl in Daylight, a biopic of PKD, will be out in 2009. Here’s a quick rundown of PKD movies, in chronological order, and with relevant video clips and posters/ stills when available.

1. Blade Runner (1982).
Director: Ridley Scott.
Writers: Philip K. Dick (novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” aka D.A.D.o.E.S.), Hampton Fancher.
Release Date: Jun 25, 1982.
Actors: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, Daryl Hannah.
IMDB: Blade Runner.
Video: Final Cut trailer.

2. Total Recall (1990).
Director: Paul Verhoeven.
Writers: Philip K. Dick (short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”), Ronald Shusett.
Release Date: Jun 1, 1990
Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone.
IMDB: Total Recall.

3. Screamers (1995).
Director: Christian Duguay.
Writers: Philip K. Dick (short story “Second Variety”), Dan O’Bannon.
Release Date: Jan 26, 1996.
Actors: Peter Weller, Roy Dupuis, Jennifer Rubin, Andrew Lauer.
IMDB: Screamers.
Video: The video clip below is of a Cinefiles episode in which they explore films based on Philip K. Dick stories. Screamers is mentioned.

4. Total Recall 2070: Machine Dreams (1999).
Notes: Pilot for TV series.
Director: Mario Azzopardi.
Writers: Philip K. Dick (short story), Art Monterastelli.
Release Date: Jan 5, 1999.
Actors: Michael Easton, Karl Pruner, Cynthia Preston, Michael Rawlins.
IMDB: Total Recall 2070.
Video: Possible spoilers.

5. Impostor (2002).
Director: Gary Fleder.
Writers: Philip K. Dick (short story “The Impostor”), Scott Rosenberg.
Release Date: Jan 4, 2002.
Actors: Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe, Vincent D’Onofrio, Tony Shaloub, Tim Guinee, Gary Dourdan.
IMDB: Impostor.
Notes: Sinise and Dourdan are now in CSI: NY and CSI, respectively; D’Onofrio in Law & Order: CI; and Shaloub in Monk. (Samantha Morton, who is in Minority Report, is in Cold Case.)

6. Minority Report (2002).
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Writers: Philip K. Dick (short story), Scott Frank.
Release Date: Jun 21, 2002.
Actors: Tom Cruise, Max Von Sydow, Steve Harris, Neal McDonough, Patrick Kilpatrick, Jessica Capshaw, Samantha Morton.
IMDB: Minority Report.

7. Paycheck (2003).
Director: John Woo.
Writers: Philip K. Dick (short story), Dean Georgaris.
Release Date: Dec 25, 2003.
Actors: Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart, Uma Thurman, Paul Giamatti, Colm Feore, Kathryn Morris (Cold Case).
Notes: My personal PKD movie favorite, displacing Blade Runner.
IMDB: Paycheck.

8. A Scanner Darkly (2006, Animated).
Director: Richard Linklater.
Writers: Philip K. Dick (novel), Richard Linklater.
Release Date: Jul 28, 2006.
Actors: Rory Cochrane, Robert Downey Jr., Mitch Baker, Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson.
IMDB: A Scanner Darkly.
Notes: This movie is live-action with a layer of animation over the frames.

9. Next (2007).
Director: Lee Tamahori
Writers: Philip K. Dick (novel “The Golden Man”), Gary Goldman, Jonathan Hensleigh, Paul Bernbaum.
Release Date: Apr 27, 2007.
Actors: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel, Thomas Kretschmann.
IMDB: Next.
Notes: Lee Tamahori directed Once Were Warriors (1995) about a family of Maori Warriors (which won 19 awards) as well as several other edgy movies.

10. Radio Free Albemuth (2008).
Director: John Alan Simon.
Writers: Philip K. Dick (novel), John Alan Simon.
Release Date: Jun 11, 2008.
Actors: Jonathan Scarfe, Shea Whigham, Katheryn Winnick, Alanis Morissette, Hanna Hall, Frances Fisher, Julie Warner.
IMDB: Radio Free Albemuth.
Video: n/a

11. Owl in Daylight (2009).
Director: unknown as of yet.
Writers: Philip K. Dick (novel, unpublished), Tony Grisoni.
Release Date: 2009.
Actors: Paul Giamatti.
IMDB: Owl in Daylight.
Notes: Paul Giamatti, who was in Paycheck (see above), plays Philip K. Dick in this sort of biography that also discusses the Owl in Daylight novel, which was planned but not actually written before PKD died.
Video: n/a

That’s now 11 movies and counting. (You might notice the time between PKD movies becoming shorter and shorter.) My guess for the next candidate is “The Man in the High Castle“, which is based on an alternate Earth where the Nazis didn’t lose WW II and they and the Japanese jointly occupy the United States. However, I’ve read somewhere that The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and/or Valis are being developed. So if no one develops High Castle in the next three years, I might start working on the screenplay myself, if I can get the rights.

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33 Responses to “11 Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Movies and Counting”

On January 9th 2008, Like Philip K. Dick Movies? Try Jack Womack Books | Movie Crunch wrote:

[...] the way, if you like Philip K. Dick movies, you’ll probably like a lot of his dystopian science fiction short stories and novels. And in [...]
On January 9th 2008, TheManInTheLowCastle wrote:

I can’t see them making a movie out of The Man in the High Castle. Its the only work of his I’ve heard, but it seems like a lot less action/intrigue than the other movies.
On January 9th 2008, thekow wrote:

Paycheck was an embarrassing massacre of one of Phillip K. Dick’s greatest stories.
On January 9th 2008, Jon Roth wrote:

@Thekow: Very interesting. The problem is, despite reading a great deal of PKD’s writing, none of what I’ve read has been turned into a movie. So I cannot claim to be able to compare his original writing against what’s in the movies. I did have to watch Paycheck five times before I liked it.

@LowCastle: Yeah, I thought that. That means a more “Hollywood” treatment of the screenplay, which could end up offending PKD fans. It’s a tough call.
On January 9th 2008, Rob wrote:

If I had to pick a PKD novel to film, I always looked at UBIK as being a fun film. I was convinced Vanilla Sky was a PKD story until I looked it up (it has most of the traditional PKD elements).
On January 9th 2008, Tom wrote:

Paycheck is bad, and you can’t get the rights to The Man in the High Castle unless you’re getting some pretty insane bank from this blog. Get real. If you mortgaged your house you couldn’t get the rights to an unknown Dick short story, let alone his masterpiece.
On January 9th 2008, Tim wrote:

You forgot Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (based on We Can Remember it For You Wholesale–same story as Total Recall)
On January 9th 2008, Adrain wrote:

Even thought it wasn’t based on a PKD story, Soldier does take place in the Blade Runner universe and was written by David Peoples who co-wrote the screenplay for Blade Runner.
On January 9th 2008, scififan wrote:

One can easily argue that the plot is not even close, and Dick never got any credit for it, but I always believed Terminator was inspired by the short story Second Variety.
On January 9th 2008, Jon Roth wrote:

@Rob: Yeah, I thought the same about Vanilla Sky at first, but it seemed quite f**ked up. I know I read UBIK, though I can’t remember the story anymore.

@Tom: Re the rights, I’m just dreaming Hopefully someone will do High Castle and do it right. If I dream hard enough, it might be me in a few years, with someone else’s money. If not, ah well.

@Tim: No kidding. I was not aware of that. Thanks for that tip. I’ll have to be more thorough.

@Adrain: I didn’t know that either. Thanks for the tip.

@scififan: I didn’t know that, but I vaguely recall the same type of argument made for a movie that came out after Blade Runner and possibly before Terminator that was loosely based on a PKD story. But that’s all I remember, and that possibly Rutger Hauer was in it as well. Since hearing that many years ago, I’ve not found any more info.
On January 9th 2008, Wonderful Author « Get the Hell Out of Here wrote:

[...] clipped from movies.popcrunch.com [...]
On January 9th 2008, gnomead wrote:

Hard Boiled by Frank Miller is a loose interpretation of The Electric Ant.
On January 10th 2008, Jennifer wrote:

I really hope they don’t make a movie out of “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” and I am sad that they are filming Radio Free Albemuth” as these are my most favorite PKD novels, and I would hate for them to be butchered. I did enjoy A Scanner Darkly” but unless they keep them more independent films, It seems they really dumb down the stories, and I think Tom Cruise in a Minority report is Blasphemy.
On January 10th 2008, darren wrote:

DUDE!!! You forgot ‘Barjo’ the french movie based on ‘Confessions of a Crap Artist”

Also, I was introduced to PKD as a really trippy author, but I didn’t want to read just based on the fact that he was the author of the book ‘blade runner’ was based on.

The cool thing about PKD for me is his mix of a mid-lower class existence and the spiritual. The beauthy of “Do androids dream of electric sheep.”, for me is the doctrine of Mercerism, and the obsession with living animals.
On January 10th 2008, fanshawe wrote:

There was a joke going around a couple of years back saying that, other than Blade Runner, The Matrix was the best PKD adaptation to date. Abre los ojos/Vanilla Sky may just come in third and fourth.
On January 10th 2008, Sylvain wrote:

12!
You’ve dropped the french movie “Confessions d’un barjot” from a mainstream novel of Ph. K. Dick “Confessions of a Crap Artist”
http://french.imdb.com/title/tt0104003/

More movie/gamel/other aaptation in french here:

http://www.noosfere.com/heberg/Le_ParaDick/adaptations.html
On January 10th 2008, 11 Science Fiction Movies based on Philip K. Dick’s Writing « Kenny’s Entertainment Blog wrote:

[...] read more | digg story [...]
On January 10th 2008, Darryl Mason wrote:

Actually Philip K Dick was a remarkably successful writer, though he didn’t see real financial worth from his work until the mid-1970s. Then again, there weren’t exactly a lot of rich authors in the US back then.

Dick’s first published novel, Solar Lottery, sold more than 300,000 copies in only a few months, back in the early 1950s. Astoundingly successful for an unknown novelist in those days.

One of his last novels, Valis, was anything but a mainstream thriller, filled with warped realities and chicaning plot lines, and it still managed to sell more than 130,000 copies in hardback and paperback on its release.

Dick did no major promotion or publicity for any of his books, outside of about a dozen or so interviews and a large feature in Rolling Stone in the mid-1970s, and yet he remained a consistently popular author for decades, even when SF sales were in the gutter.

I’d tip Terry Gilliam for director of The Owl In The Daylight.

Dick must now be one of the most ripped off novelists in all of filmdom.

The Matrix, The Terminators, The Truman Show and dozens of other movies were not ‘inspired’ by his writings, they were direct steals.

Then again, we are now living in a Philip K Dick reality, from the ‘War on Terror’ to GW Bush to the internet to designer drugs. The first person to claim the world was turning into a Philip K Dick novel? Philip K Dick himself!
On January 10th 2008, Matt wrote:

…and you all forgot the Truman Show. That was based on his 1959 novel, Time out of Joint.
On January 10th 2008, soundtrackgeek wrote:

Keep ‘em coming is all I can say!
On January 10th 2008, RegorA wrote:

To call Truman Show “based” on TOOJ is giving it more credit than it deserves. The terms “plagiarized” and “stolen lock stock and barrel” spring more readily to mind.
On January 10th 2008, Jon Roth wrote:

Wow, that’s fantastic. While I’m happy to know that there are more movies (and TV shows?) based on PKD’s writing, i’m embarrassed to realize that I didn’t know so many of them.

Didn’t know about ‘Barjo’, Truman Show, Hard Boiled, etc. Love Frank Miller in general. Terry Gilliam would be brilliant. I agree that he’d be an excellent director – and maybe not just for ‘Owl’. Can you just imagine if he did ‘High Castle’?

Thanks for all the info/tips. Much appreciated. PKD is one of my fave writers, with Jack Womack coming in a close 2nd, plus Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, etc. All of my own “proto-cyberpunk” writing is influenced by these writers.
On January 10th 2008, The films of sci-fi author Philip K. Dick : Behind The Scenes TV wrote:

[...] There have been nine movies made from PKD’s writing (excluding documentaries), and two more are in the works. One of my fave Rock chicks, Alanis Morrissette, is going to be Radio Free Albemuth in 2008. (But you oughta know, don’t expect her to go down on you in the theater. Don’t get it? Never mind.) Owl in Daylight, a biopic of PKD, will be out in 2009. Here’s a quick rundown of PKD movies, in chronological order, and with relevant video clips and posters/ stil…. [...]
On January 12th 2008, DaveUK wrote:

You missed the best of the lot, I-Robot !
On January 15th 2008, Jon Roth wrote:

DaveUK: Wish it were so, but I, Robot is actually based on Isaac Asimov’s novel of the same name.
On March 31st 2008, ArthurT wrote:

A common mistake:
You missed 13th Floor, Make that 12.
On April 27th 2008, Adam wrote:

Paycheck wasn’t that bad, I think. It was closer to the original novel and had better story than Next.
Next is the worst “adaption” yet. How can you take a satirical story about a fascist police state, and make it a patriotic story about the “need to give up our rights in the war against terror”? And who are the terrorists in the movie? They speak german, french, italian… What do they want? How do they know about Nicolas Cages character, and do they have any other agenda besides killing the man that can foresee their crimes? The movie has fatal plot-holes and the only reason they kept the “based on the novel by…”-line is so they could sell a few more tickets.

I think that at least the first half of Paychek was good and close to the original. The ending was a bit to happy and hollywoodesque, but the same thing can be said about Minority Report.
On June 28th 2008, Arko wrote:

Thanks all. Great fodder for NetFlix. I just filled up my Queue with great movies to see. Signed, Big Blade Runner Fan
On August 6th 2008, gary rosenberg wrote:

How about Rollerball from the novelette “Rollerball Murder?”
got ya!
On August 8th 2008, g.cliquet[@]lecolededesign.com » Romans wrote:

[...] Les ouvrages de P.K. Dick célèbres pour leur description visionnaire d’environnements hautement technologiques, révèlent en fait une analyse bien plus pertinente sur le plan de l’évolution des comportements humains. Le propos tend alors vers un questionnement d’ordre sociologique et philosophique qui naît des nouveaux rapports qui émergent entre humains désormais “augmentés” (Substance Mort), entre humains et machines désormais “humanisées” (Ubik) et dans les rapports directs (sans intervention humaine) de Machines à Machines. Lorsque, enfin, l’individu n’est pas humain (au sens “génétique” du terme), il se pose paradoxalement ? des questions existentielles relatives à son identité et à ses origines (Blade Runner). Un humain mis en abîme par la technologie, projeté dans des temps et des réalités multiples, entrainé dans une chute vertigineuse qui accompagne son délire paranoïaque où il ne distingue plus le vrai du faux, le réel du virtuel et où le temps est une matière maléable. Which PKD Story Are We In Today ? 11 Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Movies and Counting [...]
On August 26th 2008, 11 Science Fiction Movies based on Philip K. Dick’s Writing | Clear News Blog wrote:

[...] read more | digg story • Uncategorized [...]
On October 27th 2008, Film: Story by Philip K. Dick | Gnostica wrote:

[...] Movie Crunch has conveniently listed all of the films that have been made with screenplays based on the stories of Philip K. Dick. Most people know about Blade Runner and Total Recall. How many have heard of Paycheck (one of the more faithful adaptations; great cast but uninspired acting) or Next with Nicholas Cage as Dick’s “Golden Man”? My own favorite is A Scanner Darkly; here’s the trailer for this roto-scoped rendered film. [...]
On December 23rd 2008, movie downloads wrote:

Man In The High Castle was a kick ass book. Dick definitely deserves to be mentioned with some of the sci-fi greats of late.