S Y N O P S I S
Set in the future megalopolis of Los Angeles, The Stansbury School's class of 2036 are, “bred... for top-of-the-line performance,” poised to matriculate at the best colleges and destined to dominate the private and public sectors.
After a 12-year regimen of chemical enhancement, conditioning and ideology inside Stansbury's high-rise virtual, and digitally rendered “prison”, these co-ed high school students, known as "specimens", emerge as a master race of ninja-assassin geniuses: unnaturally tall, lethal and intelligent—at the cost of imagination and individualism.
The story hinges on two students, both full scholarship orphans, who form an unlikely partnership after six Stansbury graduates are murdered. Valedictorian Thomas Oliver Goldsmith has put his "blue collar work ethic and will” into Stansbury's mission, while Winston Cooley, a rebellious malcontent, refuses to swallow the mandated drugs or the school's supposedly high-minded ideals. When Cooley unwittingly ends up at the scene of an alum's murder, the school's administration puts Goldsmith on the case. For Stansbury, the scandal could jeopardise the school's chances to receive a $1 trillion-a-year research grant from the Government. For Cooley, his very freedom is at stake.
Prodigy’s action-packed comment on the price of “progress,” the absurdity of hyper-competitive education and the myth of meritocracy hurtles to a satisfying conclusion.
Based on the Novel by Dave Kalstein's, directed by Chuck Russell, and co-produced by Intrepid and Galavais films of Spain. The film started production in the city of Valencia, southern Spain, in 2008. The production plan was to make extensive location use of the buildings of contemporary Architect Santiago Calatrava and to build sets at the Ciudad de la Luz, film studio in Alicante.
After a working budget and schedule was approved by the studio, the film was green lit and full preproduction started.
Subsequently, due to unforeseen difficulties, the film was indefinitely postponed in October of 2008.
The images below show a flavour of the design of the film at the point of postponement.
