Da Vinci gets Starz treatment in sci-fi thriller
Source: Agencies |
March 26, 2013, Tuesday
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IN these 500 years since Leonardo da Vinci, he has upstaged every genius multi-tasker in his wake. (OK, not you, Benjamin Franklin and James Franco.)
Da Vinci was a whiz as a painter (hint: "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper"), a scientist and engineer, and a futurist dead-set on fighting the gravitational pull of his own times.
He was an intellect, free thinker, vegetarian and a humanist who supported himself designing weapons of war.
He was tall, handsome and a hit with the ladies. He was great with a sword and, being ambidextrous, which hand didn't matter. "The phrase 'Renaissance Man' was derived from him," says David S. Goyer, who has spent a lot of time studying and pondering him, and has created "Da Vinci's Demons," a sci-fi thriller set in the 1400s.
Another cool thing about da Vinci: He was a man of intrigue, ensconced in secret societies, his paternity unresolved (he was born out of wedlock), perhaps divinely inspired as he clashed with the Roman Catholic Church - a man who seemed to defy the confinements of any simple narrative.
"There's a tantalizing five-year gap, stretching from when he was 27 to 32, where there's almost no record of where he was or what he was doing," says Goyer. "A gap like that is gold when you're the creator of this show."
"Da Vinci's Demons," which premieres on the Starz network on April 12, is a "historical fantasy," says Goyer, who should be up to the challenge.
Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he remembers spending half each Saturday in a comic book shop, the other half at the city's library. Now 47, he is wiry and balding and bears a striking resemblance to the actor Stanley Tucci, whom he is often mistaken for.
His credits include the short-lived but ambitious sci-fi thriller "FlashForward," which prematurely fell prey to meddling by its network, ABC. He was script consultant and story developer for the video game "Call of Duty: Black Ops" and its sequel.
He co-wrote the 2005 film "Batman Begins" and its two sequels, and wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Zack Snyder-directed "Man of Steel."
In Goyer's view, da Vinci was the prototype of a superhero: "I picture him as one-third Indiana Jones, one-third Sherlock Holmes, one-third Tony Stark (Iron Man) - and he kind of was." To play this extraordinary chap, Goyer chose English-born 31-year-old actor Tom Riley.
Riley's da Vinci is sexy, mercurial and irrepressible. He savors life in his native Florence: "Chaos and culture are celebrated within these walls," he says lustily. "Florence only demands one thing of its people - to be truly awake!"
But da Vinci suffers from being too awake. He is too driven, too full of ideas, too haunted by doubts. He is no stranger to opium, which he uses, he explains, because "I think too much. I need to dull my thoughts or I will be eviscerated by them."
Da Vinci was a whiz as a painter (hint: "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper"), a scientist and engineer, and a futurist dead-set on fighting the gravitational pull of his own times.
He was an intellect, free thinker, vegetarian and a humanist who supported himself designing weapons of war.
He was tall, handsome and a hit with the ladies. He was great with a sword and, being ambidextrous, which hand didn't matter. "The phrase 'Renaissance Man' was derived from him," says David S. Goyer, who has spent a lot of time studying and pondering him, and has created "Da Vinci's Demons," a sci-fi thriller set in the 1400s.
Another cool thing about da Vinci: He was a man of intrigue, ensconced in secret societies, his paternity unresolved (he was born out of wedlock), perhaps divinely inspired as he clashed with the Roman Catholic Church - a man who seemed to defy the confinements of any simple narrative.
"There's a tantalizing five-year gap, stretching from when he was 27 to 32, where there's almost no record of where he was or what he was doing," says Goyer. "A gap like that is gold when you're the creator of this show."
"Da Vinci's Demons," which premieres on the Starz network on April 12, is a "historical fantasy," says Goyer, who should be up to the challenge.
Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he remembers spending half each Saturday in a comic book shop, the other half at the city's library. Now 47, he is wiry and balding and bears a striking resemblance to the actor Stanley Tucci, whom he is often mistaken for.
His credits include the short-lived but ambitious sci-fi thriller "FlashForward," which prematurely fell prey to meddling by its network, ABC. He was script consultant and story developer for the video game "Call of Duty: Black Ops" and its sequel.
He co-wrote the 2005 film "Batman Begins" and its two sequels, and wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Zack Snyder-directed "Man of Steel."
In Goyer's view, da Vinci was the prototype of a superhero: "I picture him as one-third Indiana Jones, one-third Sherlock Holmes, one-third Tony Stark (Iron Man) - and he kind of was." To play this extraordinary chap, Goyer chose English-born 31-year-old actor Tom Riley.
Riley's da Vinci is sexy, mercurial and irrepressible. He savors life in his native Florence: "Chaos and culture are celebrated within these walls," he says lustily. "Florence only demands one thing of its people - to be truly awake!"
But da Vinci suffers from being too awake. He is too driven, too full of ideas, too haunted by doubts. He is no stranger to opium, which he uses, he explains, because "I think too much. I need to dull my thoughts or I will be eviscerated by them."
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