Watch: Book Burning Classic Fahrenheit 451 Gets Film Makeover

‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’

Anyone who has ever read the dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury will know that the haunting socio-political tale will stay with you long after reading it.
Now in this current polarising political climate, HBO is set to bring this classic back to life with a blistering remake directed by Ramin Bahrani.
The film stars The Shape of Water’s Michael Shannon and the increasingly disillusioned Guy Montag played by Black Panther’s star Michael B. Jordan. Set amongst a Bladerunner-esque type backdrop, the film is set in a future where the media is an opiate, history is rewritten and “firemen” burn books and all knowledge is to be destroyed. The book was originally inspired by the McCarthy era where Communist paranoia was fuel for an intellectual purge in the fifties.

The book originally published in 1953 has since gone on to become one of the most important and relevant tales of our time. Up there with The Great Gatsby and Catcher In the Rye. There has only been one other adaptation and that was in 1966 by François Truffaut. Oh, and if you’re wondering why it is called Fahrenheit 451 it is because that is the heating measure at which books start to burn.

Fahrenheit 451 is released on HBO in May 2018.