Soon after arriving to teach at a small town college, Abe gets involved with two women: Rita Richards (Parker Posey), a lonely professor who wants him to rescue her from her unhappy marriage and Jill Pollard (Emma Stone), his best student, who becomes his closest friend. Abe feels that everything he's tried to do, from political activism to teaching, hasn't made any difference. Melchior was paid as a consultant on New Line’s Lost in Space 1998 remake but sued after being denied a percentage of the movie’s profits he said he was promised.Woody Allen's IRRATIONAL MAN is about a tormented philosophy professor who finds a will to live when he commits an existential act.Philosophy professor Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix) is at rock bottom emotionally, unable to find any meaning or joy in life. “I was still relatively new in Hollywood, and I was told that if I made waves I would never work in town. “They all agreed that of course Allen had stolen my material … and they all advised me to let it go,” he says in the book.

In Tom Weaver’s 2010 book A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde: Interviews With 62 Filmmakers, Melchior said he was robbed and consulted with lawyers. He pitched the concept of a family marooned away from Earth to several producers as well as CBS a short while later, CBS and producer Irwin Allen unveiled a new series they called Lost in Space. Anderson prequel Death Race, toplined by Jason Statham.Īnother of Melchior’s ideas was called Space Family Robinson, based on Johann David Wyss‘ The Swiss Family Robinson. His short story The Racer led to the 1975 Roger Corman film Death Race 2000, starring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone, and the 2008 Paul W.S. Directed by Byron Haskin, it starred Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, Adam West and a monkey named Mona.

Melchior, who claimed he was the one who came up with the ideas for TV’s Lost in Space and Star Trek, died Saturday of natural causes at his home in West Hollywood, his son, Leif, told The Hollywood Reporter.Ī native of Copenhagen, Melchior co-wrote the screenplay for Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964), based on Daniel Dufoe‘s 18th century adventure tale. Ib Melchior, the screenwriter and director who took two classics of literature and set them in the future for the 1960s sci-fi films Robinson Crusoe on Mars and The Time Travelers, has died.

Movie magic screenwriter 2000