Kip Thorne - Films

Films

Carl Sagan once asked Thorne to examine the time travel section of the manuscript for Contact. Thorne immediately dismissed Sagan's hypothesis; however, he later had an epiphany — wormholes may be used as time machines. His subsequent work, Wormholes, Time Machines and the Weak Energy Condition, along with other papers, has made him popular with science fiction fans. He did not care that it was highly speculative work, and he put as much energy into it as he did other subjects.

In June 2006, Steven Spielberg announced he would direct a scientifically accurate film about "a group of explorers who travel through a worm hole and into another dimension", from a treatment by Kip Thorne and producer Lynda Obst. In January 2007, screenwriter Jonathan Nolan met with the studio to discuss adapting Obst and Thorne's treatment into a narrative screenplay. The screenwriter suggested the addition of a "time element" to the treatment's basic idea, which was welcomed by Obst and Thorne. In March, Paramount hired Nolan as well as scientists from Caltech, forming a workshop who will begin adapting the treatment after completing the script for Warner Bros.' The Chicago Fire. The following July, Kip Thorne said there was a push by people for him to portray himself in the film Interstellar.

The film, jointly financed by Paramount Pictures and Spielberg's DreamWorks Studios, will be released in North America by DreamWorks through Touchstone Pictures on November 21, 2014. Paramount will handle the international distribution.