One day somebody will tell a time-travelling story in which tinkering with the past turns out to be a great idea and doesn't result in horrifying knock-on effects such as people's heads disappearing in photographs or monkeys taking over the world. That day is probably not this day. Science fiction of this ilk rarely tends to break new ground, and Jonathan Demme's latest project, based on a forthcoming Stephen King novel, sounds like a predictable melange of Back to the Future, Quantum Leap and BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart.
That's not to say the premise doesn't sound intriguing, despite its familiarity. 11/22/63 will focus on a 35-year-old high school English teacher from modern day Maine who discovers a portal allowing him to travel back to 1958, the era of rock'n'roll, bobby socks and bulky motor vehicles. Instead of heading to the nearest betting shop like any sane person, he embarks on an ambitious plan to change history by saving John F Kennedy from assassination. With Lee Harvey Oswald having struck in 1963, that gives our hero, named Jake Epping, a full five years to persuade Kennedy's supposed assassin to stay in the marines (or work out who set the poor lug up as a patsy). The book's synopsis suggests that Epping also finds romance in 1958 with a beautiful high school librarian.
King has hinted that the character's actions in the past may have unlikely consequences: writing about the project in 2007, he said: "I'd like to tell a time-travel story where this guy finds a diner that connects to 1958 ... you always go back to the same day. So one day he goes back and just stays. Leaves his 2007 life behind. His goal? To get up to November 22, 1963, and stop Lee Harvey Oswald. He does, and he's convinced he's just FIXED THE WORLD. But when he goes back to '07, the world's a nuclear slag-heap. Not good to fool with Father Time. So then he has to go back again and stop himself ... only he's taken on a fatal dose of radiation, so it's a race against time."
So far, so obvious. And yet the story might just offer the sort of popcorn predictability that makes the new Planet of the Apes film such a no-brainer joy. Demme has optioned King's book – a 1,000-page-plus epic – and hopes to shoot in 2012, though at this stage he doesn't have a distribution deal. This is one of those projects which might easily fall by the wayside, especially given that a Hollywood figure of the stature of Ron Howard recently failed to secure funding to film King's Dark Tower series. On the other hand, with all its well-worn time-travelling cliches, 11/22/63 does seem like an easier sell. Hollywood studios love a movie with transparent echoes of previous blockbuster fare and "Back to the Future with politics" has a certain ring to it.
Demme won the Academy award for best director in 1991 for The Silence of the Lambs and has an unshowy but impressive track record since then. There's certainly enough quality in films such as Philadelphia, his remake of The Manchurian Candidate and 2008's Rachel Getting Married to suggest a classy take on King's novel. The film-maker maintains an interest in liberal US politics, too, as his excellent 2007 documentary Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains made apparent.
The ramifications of Kennedy's survival are what make 11/22/63 of interest. How would he have dealt with Vietnam and the civil rights era? Would his sexual peccadilloes have ultimately brought him down as the US media began to exercise its muscle in the 1970s? Might the Berlin wall have come down rather earlier had he stayed in power? But that's all rather a lot for a two-hour movie to take in. King and Demme shouldn't panic too much: they can always fall back on ape apocalypse and disappearing noggins if the going gets too tough.