Will Smith Is Wired Into 'I, Robot'

Will Smith Fox has cast Will Smith to star in sci-fier "I, Robot," an adaptation of the 1940s Isaac Asimov short-story collection, reports Variety.

Shooting is to begin in April. Alex Proyas, whose last large-canvas projects were "Dark City" and "The Crow," will direct the film.

The original "I, Robot" contained nine short stories that Asimov wrote for various magazines throughout the 1940s, brought together thematically by the author's three laws of robotics. Those laws hold that a robot may not injure a human or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm; a robot must obey orders given to it by a human, except where it would conflict with the first law; and a robot must protect itself, as long as that protection doesn't violate either the first or second law.

The movie is a futuristic thriller in which a detective investigates a crime that might have been perpetrated by a robot, even though that seems an impossibility given those three prevailing rules.

"The big idea here is that if the robots have found a way to violate the laws, there is nothing to stop them from taking over, because the human race is so dependent on robots and automation," said 20th Century Fox film president Hutch Parker.

"Putting him in a film with a visualist like Proyas and one of the most indelible preawareness titles in science fiction makes this well worth the five or so years we've invested in the project," Parker added.