Tesla Goes to the Movies

For a guy that died penniless in 1943, Nikola Tesla has sure become a modern day pop figure. Besides the usual documentaries, Tesla has made appearances in several mainstream movies.

For example, Tesla is a key character in the movie “The Prestige,” starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson and Michael Caine.  In keeping with his rock star status, Nikola Tesla is played by none other than iconic rock star David Bowie.  The Prestige centers on the competing lives of two turn of the 20^th Century magicians, each vying for fame and fortune in the emerging yet surprisingly cutthroat world of magic.  Each tries to outdo the other in developing new tricks and when one rival is seemingly able to be in two places at once, the other seeks out the mysterious Nikola Tesla, then working in his remote Colorado Springs laboratory.  At first, the “magic” of Tesla’s electronic machine seems not to be found, or was it?  Soon the secret is revealed to the magician and Tesla alike, but not to the filmgoing audience.  Now two magicians can seemingly be in two places at once, and the rivalry expands through deaths of loved ones – and the trial of one magician for apparently murdering the other.  But as with all magic and deceitful twists and turns, not is all what it seems.  And Tesla’s magic seems the most amazing of all, a magic that neither magician could replicate on his own.

Another movie due out in 2013 is “Fragments from Olympus: The Vision of Nikola Tesla.” In it, “the enigmatic life of electrical genius Nikola Tesla unravels through a posthumous F.B.I. investigation into his particle beam research, including a new super weapon called the “death ray”.” [More on the conspiracy theories surrounding Tesla in my book.]

Even more intriguing is the recent announcement by the Facebook site “Nikola Tesla,” which reported that “at fall begins the filming of a movie about the great Serbian scientist, Nikola Tesla.” The film is expected to be filmed, at least in part, in Chicago, home of the famous Columbian Exhibition that featured Tesla’s massive generators as commercialized by George Westinghouse. Slated to play Telsa is none other than Christian Bale of “Batman” fame – and to the Prestige movie noted above.

Bale not “Hollywood” enough for you. The same Tesla site on Facebook has revealed that Nicholas Cage (!) will play Thomas Edison, one-time employer and then arch-rival of Nikola Tesla. Also being considered for roles are Croatian actor Rade Serbedzija, and Hollywood luminaries Martin Sheen, Megan Fox and Jessica Alba.

The tentative title is “Tesla, Ruler of the World,” and reportedly “will revolve around a modern-day technological crisis that somehow ties back to Tesla’s life.”  According to the Tesla Facebook page:

The first stage recorders are going to take place in Serbia, and then the team is going to move to Chicago. For the purposes of the film, our country will build the whole “New York” scenery as well as the scenery of the other cities which are important in the biography of Nikola Tesla. A prominent weekly magazine “Hollywood Reporter” also wrote about this film ten days ago. They state that this is a Serbian-American cooperation, that the film will include an international actors team, and that the story about Tesla will reach the audience through a partnership with a major film studio. Renowned “Universal Studios” will partially finance the filming, but will also be responsible for promoting the movie and its distribution in the world. As the “Hollywood Reporter” said even before the shooting, this movie is seen as a “first pick” of prestigious awards.”

If all goes well the movie will come out roughly around the time of my book “Nikola Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity,” i.e., June 20, 2013.

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