Minority Report
‘Minority Report’ is now best known for the action-packed 2002 Spielberg sci-fi movie starring Tom Cruise. That was, in fact, a sexed-up adaptation of Philip K Dick’s dystopian 1958 novella, which played out more like a Cold War thriller than the hovercar-tastic excesses of the film. Nonetheless, its central vision remained the same: a future in which criminals are arrested before they commit a crime thanks to the efforts of seemingly infallible telepaths. David Haig’s adaptation promises to cleave more closely to the book. But it looks like it will still be very much its own thing, with a new setting, characters and possibly even premise as it follows Dame Julia Anderton, the founder of the Pre-Crime programme, who receives a report saying she will commit a murder. Telepaths are not mentioned in the copy, which raises the distinct possibility that in Haig’s adaptation the Pre-Crime division is actually based on AI – something already being discussed as a possibility IRL. Max Webster directs this eye-catching opener to the Lyric Hammersmith’s 2024 season, a co-production with Nottingham Playhouse and Birmingham Rep with a cast TBC.