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'The Box,' Starring Robots and Unicorns, Is Spurring a Hollywood Bidding War

by Caleb Johnson on April 10, 2010 at 04:30 PM

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a bidding war broke out Wednesday over a sci-fi short film that was made as part of an experiment sponsored by Phillips called Parallel Lines, in which the electronics giant challenged five filmmakers to each make a short film using set pieces of dialogue. So what's the short film that has studio executives tearing at each others' throats? Titled 'The Gift,' the short was directed by Carl Erik Rinsch, who has made his name directing commercials and is a protege of director Ridley Scott.

Here's a summary of the clip (if you don't want to watch it after the break). A guy wearing a furry hat delivers an intricately carved box to an old man in futuristic Moscow. Upon opening it, the old guy discovers that the box holds a unicorn. (Yes, we said a unicorn.) Naturally, the delivery guy murders the old guy and takes the box, only to be run over by a speeding bus as he walks down the street. Enter dead guy's robot butler. This bot runs up and grabs the box -- just before police get to the scene. Next, the robot leads cops on a high-speed motorcycle chase. The bot crashes, hobbles off and drops the box into an icy river -- just before the cops blast him to smithereens. But, just before the credits roll, a small boy finds the box frozen in the river -- keeping hope alive for that magical little trapped creature [Edit. Note: Or the danger of the forbidden 'Corn].

That can only mean one thing. This short is ripe for a feature-length adaptation. At least, that's what Hollywood thinks. Supposedly, Fox is the front runner to nab the rights to Rinsch's short. We might not line up at the box office to see it, but it does leave us asking some questions: what would a robot want with a unicorn? Or, why would the delivery guy take it to the old sage in the first place? Wouldn't it be easier to just steal the box?

Maybe those questions will be answered in a feature, but, if not, we smell webisodes. [From: The Hollywood Reporter, via: io9]

Tags: carl erik rinsch, CarlErikRinsch, fox, funny, movies, phillips, ridleyscott, robot, sci-fi, ShortFilm, top, unicorns

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