Dick wrote his sole screenplay after being approached in 1974 by a French film producer about an adaptation of his 1969 novel Ubik. The producer paid Dick for the completed work, but financing for the movie fell through and it was never made.
This published version is too novelistic, at least by modern screenplay standards, but if it wasn’t there wouldn’t be much of a draw in reading a screenplay for an unproduced movie. It seems to exist only for the curiosity seekers and completists among us, since the story and characters are nearly the same as in the book, except for some additional scenes at the end where Ella Runciter is reborn.
Ubik does appear destined though to make it to the screen in some way or another. The producer of the film adaptation of A Scanner Darkly had optioned Ubik in the early 2000s, Michel Gondry was in the beginning stages of developing a movie in 2011, and in 2018 yet another screenplay was being developed with a new writer and producers.
Cast of characters
- Glen Runciter – owner of Runciter Associates, an anti-psi prudence organization
- Ella Runciter – Glen’s dead wife in half-life
- Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang – owner of Beloved Brethren Moratorium.
- Jory Miller – a dead fifteen-year-old boy in half-life cold-pac storage
- Raymond Hollis – employs telepaths. Runciter’s opposition
- G. G. Ashwood – one of Runciter’s telepaths
- Joe Chip – Runciter’s electrical tester
- Pat Conley– an anti-precog
- Stanton Mick – reclusive speculator and financier
- Zoe Wirt – Stanton Mick’s assistant
- Tippy Jackson, Edie Dorn, Al Hammond, John Ild, Francesca Spanish, Tito Apostos, Don Denny, Sammy Mundo, Wendy Wright, Fred Zafsky – Runciter’s inertials