Nov 5 2008Are You Ready for 'Chatroom: The Movie'?

Chatroom, a stage play written by the Irish playwright Enda Walsh, is being adapted into a film to be directed by Ringu's Hiedo Nakata. The National Theatre describes the plot:

"In cyberspace six 15-year-olds type and chat. A chilling and powerful tale of manipulation and the ultimate act of teenage rebellion."

So how will this play, which at least in some productions has the lines "delivered to the audience as each teenager sits in the anonymous safety of their own home," be brought to screens? The founder of the company selling the project explains:

Nakata has come up with something very visual, very conceptual, and situated somewhere between 'Disturbia' and 'Cube,'

Wait, like Cube? Are they implying the chatrooms will be physical, connected rooms that the teens will travel between, literally moving through a visualization of "cyberspace"? And this isn't 1998? That's so good. If Chatroom turns out even half as laughable as I'm imagining it (teens on cyber-surfboards, mostly), this has the potential to be the best internet-based thriller ever made (after Pulse 2, of course).

But even if it turns out I have the wrong impression about this thing, as is often the case, something at least needs to be done about this name. Chatroom! How can there be a 2008 movie called Chatroom? I don't know how someone would say it with a straight face. "Anyone want to see CD-ROM: The Movie this weekend? Oh, that isn't out yet? How about Chatroom then?" Even Fear Dot Com is laughing at Chatroom.