SAN DIEGO — How do you update a big, bouncy white ball that serves as inanimate enforcer in a panoptic resort prison? That was the source of great debate during the making of upcoming television miniseries The Prisoner, according to an AMC exec.
The team remaking the spy-fi series considered an anthropomorphic orb and other possibilities to replace the '60s show's roly-poly Rover, and even thought about having no Rover at all, said AMC Vice President Vlad Wolynetz during a Friday panel at Comic-Con International.
In the end, common sense prevailed, and somebody said, "How about a big white ball?" Wolynetz said. The new Rover will pull some tricky maneuvers, but the basic look remains the same: big, round and white.
The plight of Number Six, the rabble-rousing prisoner who finds himself inexplicably trapped in a posh prison where constant surveillance is the norm, also remains the same. However, many other things have changed in the AMC/ITC remake, which will air over three nights in November.
Footage screened during the panel and on the Comic-Con convention floor shows a vividly re-imagined Village (the cushy, exotic "prison" where everyone is known by a number not a name) and a television series as artful as any big-screen extravaganza.
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The scenes show Number Six (played by Jim Caviezel) going head-to-head with a deliciously sinister Number Two (Ian McKellen).
Shot in Swakopmund, a bizarre-looking colonial German village in Namibia, The Prisoner boasts plenty of stellar cinematography and starkly compelling imagery. The content is much darker than the original: In one scene, Caviezel is tied to a stake in the desert with a hand grenade in his mouth as McKellen looks on. In another, McKellen tosses a hand grenade to one of his subordinates (apparently he's got a thing for explosives).
The gorgeous scenery plays well with the intensity of the action. While Caviezel, Wolynetz and the rest of the panel members stressed that the new Prisoner remains respectful to the original —with plenty of nods to Patrick McGoohan's influential series — it's clear that the miniseries will play to current realities in the post-9/11 world, with plenty of politics, conspiracy, violence and surveillance.
Caviezel said The Prisoner plays like a "six-hour movie with two intermissions," promising that the miniseries' impossible-to-predict plot and sumptuous visuals will look like nothing else on TV.
Photo of The Prisoner booth on the floor of Comic-Con International: Jon Snyder/Wired.com.
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