A Philip K. Dick Short Story Helped Inspire A Forgotten Nicolas Cage Action Movie
by Witney Seibold · /FilmWe may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
It's entirely likely that you don't remember Lee Tamahori's 2007 action flick "Next," starring Nicolas Cage. The film wasn't very memorable and didn't perform well at the box office. Made for $78.1 million, "Next" only made $77.6 million globally. Critics were also indifferent, giving the film dismissive reviews; it currently only holds a 28% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 128 reviews.
The premise of "Next" is intriguing. Cage plays a low-level gambler and Las Vegas magician named Cris who has the uncanny ability to see two minutes into his own future. This is very handy when playing cards, but doesn't seem to have many other practical applications otherwise. Cris has also had a single vision of a more distant point in his future wherein he sees an attractive woman named Liz (Jessica Biel) approach him in a diner. The plot of the movie involves Cris' sudden involvement with the FBI (represented by Julianne Moore) and their hope that he can use his powers to stop a pack of terrorists with a nuclear bomb. It also follows what happens when he finally meets the woman from his vision in real life.
During the course of the movie, Cris hones his precognitive abilities, somewhat allowing him to see various futures based directly on his actions. This last element is extrapolated very generally from the 1954 Philip K. Dick short story "The Golden Man," on which "Next" is said to be based. "The Golden Man," however, has almost nothing to do with the movie "Next," apart from a character named Cris and his abilities to see into the future. Be sure to read our Philip K. Dick primer for more on the faithfulness of adaptations of his work.
Next is based on Philip K. Dick's The Golden Man, but not really
In "Next," Cris' future-sight extension only comes about in matters related to Liz. He can see far into the future if Liz's fate is at stake. Nothing else appears to him beyond the usual two minutes. This is certainly a romantic contrivance — Liz is so magical and beautiful that she can bend a man's superpowers — but it was invented by the "Next" screenwriters, and wasn't part of the original Philip K. Dick story at all.
"The Golden Man" was written in the wake of World War II, and is actually fraught with themes of genetic mastery and the dangers of racial superiority. The story takes place in a distant, post-apocalyptic future wherein a new race of super-powered mutants have arisen among the human populace. The main character of "The Golden Man" is a cop who is tasked with tracking down and executing mutants. His latest target is a mutant named Cris who can indeed predict the future. Cris, however, is very different from the run-down gambler that Nicolas Cage plays in "Next." The original Cris was a large, muscular super-stud with golden skin and an animalistic sexuality. He was practically feral.
Cris is surrounded by mutant-hunting cops and taken into prison where he's to be studied and executed, but he manages to give his captors the slip when he proves to be too attractive to resist; the protagonist's fiancée is seduced by his hotness and lets him go. The story ends with the cop musing that the escaped Cris may lead to a new evolution of humanity.
Next is not very memorable
"The Golden Man" was re-published in 1980 as part of a Philip K. Dick short story collection that was also called "The Golden Man." In that collection, Dick wrote a brief intro wherein he explained that "The Golden Man" was based on an argument he had with another sci-fi author about the possibility of superhuman mutants rising among humans. Dick felt genetically superior mutants should be regarded with suspicion if they would want to rule over us inferior lifeforms (in X-Men terms: Was Magneto right?), because once people claiming to be genetically superior put themselves in charge, it's just a hop, a skip, and a jump to murderous tyranny. As Dick wrote, he felt this way because, well, "It might have something to do with buildings marked SHOWERS but which really weren't."
"Next," as readers have already discovered, does not resemble "The Golden Man" in any meaningful way. Its ideas are centered on shallow Hollywood blockbuster concerns like nuclear bombs and true love. It has no notions of actual fate or causality, and certainly has nothing to do with Philip K. Dick's concerns about the rise of a master race. Instead, it's a silly, forgettable movie that no one seems to be particularly fond of. It's another case of a Hollywood screenplay being overdeveloped into mush.
As it so happens, the original screenplay for "Next," written by Gary Goldman, is available online. In that draft, Cris was more like in Dick's story — a feral, handsome mutant. Eventually, someone in a studio somewhere felt that Cris needed to be more relatable, and that the movie needed a romantic subplot. Then the script was re-written entirely, and we got the generic film we ended up with, which is definitively not one of Nicolas Cage's best movies.