Wow, that’s one of the more esoteric headlines I’ve ever written.  To break it down for you, Allan Loeb is the awesom-o-like script machine behind such films as 21, The Dilemma, and Kevin James’ “Martial Farts” (working title), and he’s incredibly successful.  But now there’s a new guy peddling really-warmed-over-sounding ideas on the block, and his name is Daniel H. Wilson.  Formerly known as a Robotics Ph.D. candidate who’d written cutesy coffee table-ish books that look like they took about an afternoon to write, such as How to Survive a Robot Uprising, and Bro-Jitsu: The Martial Art of Sibling Smackdown, it was announced last month that Steven Spielberg would be directing his upcoming novel, Robopocalypse, which sounds, well, basically like a Terminator knockoff from the studio that made Transmorphers.

Now Deadline says Wilson has sold another novel, Amp, to Alex Proyas, which sparked a bidding war even though this one’s not finished yet either.

With Alex Proyas poised to produce and potentially direct, Summit Entertainment has just closed a deal for screen rights to AMP, a near-future science fiction thriller novel by Daniel H. Wilson. The novel is set in a world where the technology designed to make the disabled whole, turns them into supermen. Deal was low six against seven figures.
I’m told that aside from Summit, Working Title and Paramount also chased a novel that has a mix of scifi action and political allegory reminiscent of District 9 [don't you mean *will* have? -Ed.]. Wilson took the Summit deal because he was impressed by Proyas, who’ll shoot the picture at a modest budget in Australia. Wilson is writing the book, and the plan is to hire a screenwriter who’ll take his novel pages and draft them into script form, the way Drew Goddard did while Wilson was scribbling away on Robopocalypse.

And here I thought “your novel sounds great, here’s a million dollars!” was just a barista fantasy.  Hey, remember when “Gee, this sounds like a bunch of things I’ve already seen” wasn’t a compliment?

The dude in this video is Daniel H. Wilson, writer of Robopocalypse, a book Spielberg will be adapting for his next directing project.  Wilson, who previously published such gems as How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion, and How to Build a Robot Army: Tips on Defending Planet Earth Against Aliens, Ninjas, and Zombies, is still finishing Robopocalypse, his first novel, about, you guessed it, a robot uprising.  Wilson’s robot war story is said to differ from all the others in that it’s “more realistic.” Because Wilson is a robotics PhD who wrote a book about ninjas and zombies, you see.  I swear to God, that is the actual logic behind greenlighting this.

“Robopocalypse embodies an imaginative story of a robot rebellion unleashed against the human race,” said Mark Sourian, who’s announcing the project with his co-prexy Holly Bario. ”

Spielberg has two pictures he directed that are in post-production, Tin Tin: The Secret of the Unicorn will be distributed in the U.S. on December 28, 2011 with War Horse following 5 days later. Spielberg will start shooting Robopocalypse in January, 2012 and Disney’s Touchstone will distribute in 2013.

Doubleday will publish the book June, 2011. Wilson is hot stuff, in the kind of hi-tech scifi terrain that was the domain of Michael Crichton. His rep, Justin Manask, is preparing to shop his next book, AMP, which is a near-future science fiction thriller set in a world where the technology to make the disabled whole, turns them into supermen. [Deadline]

Yes, I’m sure the guy who wrote Bro-Jitsu: The Martial Art of Sibling Smackdown is exactly like Michael Crichton. You’ve done it again, Hollywood.

For some reason, the internet loves to speculate on what Steven Spielberg will do next.  Once we crossed “take a huge bong load and play xBox” off the list, we wonder what movies he might direct.  The latest guess is that he’s looking at Robopocalypse.  If you’ll remember, that’s the as-yet-to-be-completed novel by Daniel Wilson, which takes the premise of Terminator and adds “realism.”  Because Daniel Wilson is a Ph.D. in robotics, you see.  Yes, that’s what Terminator was always missing.  Did I mention Daniel Wilson has written some other books?

• How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
• How to Build a Robot Army: Tips on Defending Planet Earth Against Aliens, Ninjas, and Zombies
• The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame: Muwahahaha!
• Bro-Jitsu: The Martial Art of Sibling Smackdown

And here I thought “bro-jitsu” was what those black guys were using to neutralize my extensive Aikido training. (Aikido: the useless martial art for dorks™).  Anyway, Deadline reports that Dreamworks has hired Cloverfield writer Drew Goddard to adapt Robopocalypse, and that it’s a “serious candidate” for Spielberg to direct.  But whatever Spielberg decides, it’s clear Drew Goddard has cemented his status as the go-to guy for obnoxious-people-run-from-stuff movies.

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(My mistake, this is actually a Birdemic, not a Robopocalypse, I must’ve gotten the slides mixed up.)

Dreamworks today bought the rights to an unpublished novel called Robopocalypse, which of course is the erotic story of the first lesbian to play in the WNBA.

The angry-robots story line has played out in movies such as the “Terminator” series, “I, Robot” and the two “Transformers” films [wrong, though we would've accepted "The Matrix." -Ed.]
But Daniel H. Wilson, an actual Ph.D. in robotics, has grounded his tale with a heavy degree of authenticity derived from real robot technology.
“Daniel H. Wilson’s cautionary tale of man versus machine grabbed us from the very beginning,” said Dreamworks’ Mark Sourian. “Wilson’s background in robotics and artificial intelligence grounds his story with a frightening level of realism.”
Wilson added: “Writing this novel is an incredible thrill, after spending years studying and thinking about robotics. My hope is that the story we tell will make the robots of the future proud of us humans.” [THR]

Let’s see, so you took the premise of a bunch of other science fiction movies and added more realism and a literal title?  Well, done, man, that’s great.  (*pats Wilson on the back while secretly taping “kick me i’m a huge dork” sign to it*)  Wilson is also known for writing such previous titles as (and I’m not making any of these up): – How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion, Bro-Jitsu: The Martial Art of Sibling Smackdown, - How to Build a Robot Army: Tips on Defending Planet Earth Against Aliens, Ninjas, and Zombies and - The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame: Muwahahaha! So congrats to Daniel Wilson, or, as he’s known to friends, “I thought I told you to stop calling here.”