"Caribbean's" Verbinski To Direct Self-Driving Car Race Film

Car companies, or at least a good number of them, are in a race to put out the best self-driving car of the future. Now imagine if they actually turned that into a literal race? That is somewhat the plot of an upcoming film nicknamed "Driverless Car Race", hopefully not the working title, that centers around these autonomous vehicles putting the pedal to the metal. By themselves, of course. And who will be at the helm of this film? None other than Gore Verbinski of thrice the Pirates of the Caribbean fame.

Should we expect high octane car racing action? Probably not so much. Think about it. These self-driving cars are designed to be safe, not reckless and dangerous. The film will most likely play on that irony in order to drum up laughter. Because if you haven't guessed it yet, this is going to be an action comedy film. After all, Pirates of the Caribbean.

According to the tip, the plot starts out innocently enough, reflecting real-world startups competing to design the autonomous car of the future. Things take a different and wilder turn, however, when the supposedly innocent competition, a road trip from Paris to Beijing, turns into a road race and all auto hell breaks lose.

There is perhaps also a bit of social commentary in the film to deliver a moral lesson. The cars have seemingly decided for themselves to turn the competition into one of speed, much to the shock and fear or their drivers, perhaps. If so, we're pretty damn sure the film will end with the characters regaining manual control and riding off into the sunset.

Sony has supposedly acquired the film pitch. Steve Conrad (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Pursuit of Happiness) will pen the script. As for the stars? "... we are going to take the funniest comedic actors of this generation ...", says Verbinski. He probably wasn't referring to the cars.

SOURCE: Deadline

VIA: The Verge