Life of Pi Sequel to be Filmed at MIT

Update: Happy April Fools' Day! Life of Pi² will not be filming at MIT. But we think the robotic cheetah is definitely worthy of his own movie.

As movies and television shows continue to film in and around Boston, it's no surprise that MIT's campus is one of the area's most-requested filming locations. While the Institute has allowed on-campus filming only sparingly in the past, beginning in 2014, the presence of actors, cameras, and film crews will be a common sight at MIT.

The sequel to the fantasy adventure film, Life of Pi, will be set entirely on MIT campus. The proposed script, tentatively titled Life of Pi², describes the protagonist, Pi Patel, as a graduate student at a post-apocalyptic MIT where a failed climate-change experiment causes the Charles River to rise over its banks and engulf Cambridge.

According to the script—leaked exclusively to Slice of MIT—specific campus locations will serve as key plot points throughout the film. Several MIT departments will participate in special effects generation, including the Media Lab's Cinematic Illusory Process Group, which will choreograph a climactic CGI-enhanced scene that depicts the flooding of the Infinite Corridor and the destruction of the Great Dome.

The Academy Award-winning film was lauded by critics for its thematic struggle between nature and humans and the sequel follows a somewhat-altered approach. After the campus is flooded, Patel forms an unlikely bond with a robotic cheetah (based on real-life MIT research) named William Rogers. The cheetah's wise-cracking ways don't initially mesh with the soft-spoken Patel, creating the film's overarching theme: Can humans and robots coexist?

There is no word on who will star in the film and Slice cannot confirm rumors that former MIT student James Woods will supply the voice of the animatronic William Rogers. Filming is slated to begin in the spring of 2014, around April 1.