Way back in 2006, Christopher McQuarrie was announced as the writer and director of The Stanford Prison Experiment. Nine years later the film is finally complete, but in rather different form than originally planned. McQuarrie is now listed only among the producers, with the screenplay credit going to Tim Talbott (South Park, Medium), and Kyle Patrick Alvarez (C.O.G.) in the director's chair. Ezra Miller, Thomas Mann, Billy Crudup and Olivia Thirlby head up the cast, and here's a trailer.
The film, of course, is based on the infamous human behaviour study conducted in the early 1970s. The experiment saw a group of US college students taking on the roles of prisoners and guards to study the effects of incarceration. Within a day, the “guards” resorted to psychological torture and humiliation and the “prisoners” began to riot.
It’s been a cultural touchstone for years – and several films based on the subject have been grinding away in the Development Slammer for years. The most recent was Paul T. Scheuring's 2010 The Experiment, starring Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker, and itself a remake of Oliver Hirschbiegel's 2001 German film. The BBC also recreated the experiment for a documentary series in 2002.
A familiar story then, and we'll see in due course whether Alvarez and co. have come up with a markedly fresh take. The Stanford Prison Experiment plays on Thursday at the Edinburgh Film Festival, but we don't otherwise have a UK release date yet.