It's surprising that the radio show This American Life has inspired just one movie, and that movie, Unaccompanied Minors, turned out so uninteresting. The weekly broadcast features some of the most fascinating stories you'll hear, from dark family dramas (try this one) to the story of a voicemail message that became a campus sensation in the early 90s (trust me, you'll be glad you listened).
But lately Ira Glass and company seem to be doing better at scoring movie deals, and now a story that re-aired over the weekend, "You're As Cold As Ice," will become a narrative feature directed by Errol Morris, who is mostly known for his documentaries. Officially called Untitled Cryonics Project, the movie will tell the story of Robert F. Nelson, who in the 1960s was part of a cryonics society and wound up putting several bodies in deep freeze, intending to revive them in a future in which it was possible to cheat death. But with no money and no resources, Nelson's well-intended efforts turned out disastrously.
Variety says that Glass and This American Life producer Alissa Shipp will produce the film with Steve Zaillian. Steve Helm, who wrote Stranger than Fiction, will take over the script for this story, which is most certainly stranger than fiction as well. The story will also be based on Nelson's memoir We Froze the First Man.
