The first clip from The Zero Theorem is here, featuring Christoph Waltz wandering a brightly colored, advertising-filled dystopia that announces its director in every frame. A director, by the way, that has also announced his thoughts on that 12 Monkeys TV show Syfy is making...

First, the movie: Christoph Waltz plays an angst-ridden computer programmer trying to figure out the "zero theorem," which will prove whether life has meaning or not, for a mysterious benefactor merely called Management. As this clip indicates, the future is garish, full of ads, and the news comes from duMBC (subtle!), although at least we have the Church of Batman the Redeemer to get us by.

As for the 12 Monkeys show, Gilliam has not been contacted about it, and is not a fan anyways, telling Screen Daily: “It’s a very dumb idea. That’s what I think. If it was going to be any good it would have to be written by David and Janet Peoples, who wrote the film, otherwise it would just be another version of Time Bandits.”

Admittedly, another version of Time Bandits sounds awesome to me, but I understand why he'd want the movie's original writers on board the TV version. Still, there are other talented writers out there — I don't think that necessarily damns the show to mediocrity. On the other hand, Syfy would do well to patch things up with Gilliam, I think. Having the film's original director running around saying the show based on his movie is dumb isn't the best way to get publicity.