doug liman

Doug Liman is getting a do-over this summer, with the release of his new series ‘Impulse’ on Youtube Red.  ‘Impulse’ is based on Steven Gould’s third novel in a series that began with his 1992 book ‘Jumper’.  Liman adapted ‘Jumper‘ into a movie in 2008 and while it was a moderate hit, it was poorly reviewed and eventually faded from memory.  (It’s actually not that bad…)  Now Liman is turning ‘Impulse’ into a series with ambitious plans should it take off.

“I always felt like with Jumper I had a contrarian idea that I started exploring but I just didn’t get it right, and unlike my other films where I maybe don’t get something right but I go back and reshoot and so I get it right, that film just got released. And so I’ve always had to gnawing at me that I want to do a superhero story and I want to get it right. When I had the option to tackle the Jumper sequel, Impulse, I started looking and I said this is my chance to get it right.”

‘Jumper’ was Gould’s first book, which focused on David Rice (the character played by Hayden Christensen in the film), a teen with the power to teleport, who falls in love with Millicent, mostly known as “Millie” (played by Rachel Bilson).  His first follow-up was entitled ‘Reflex’ and followed David and Millie as adults.  His third book, ‘Impulse’ focuses on their teenage daughter, also named Millicent, but referred to as “Cent” to differentiate her from her mother.  Cent is 16 and has inherited her father’s ability to “jump” through space.  Gould also wrote a fourth book that continued Cent’s adventures, ‘Exo’.

Liman plans to build an expansive world on ‘Impulse’ but he wants to firmly establish the core characters first.  In the books, Cent was homeschooled, so while intelligent, she has trouble relating to others her own age.  She is bullied by a girl named Camellia “Caffeine” Barnett, but she has two BFFs, Jade and Tara.  She has a crush on a boy named Brett but later gets a boyfriend named Joe Trujeque.

“We do have a gameplan. […] [It] may not be quite the idea we tried or thought about when we were writing it, but this is the one that suddenly was going to spawn – you could see where you were going to get more and more story out of it. In the same way, the fact that initially all she can do is teleport home – so that the power’s more of a curse – not more, it is a curse: the one place she doesn’t want to be is the only [place] her superpower can bring her to […] We can have a lot of fun and get a lot of great story out of that before we even start sending her outward.”

Are you intrigued to see what Liman can do with the ‘Jumper’ universe, now that he’s learned his lessons from making the first poorly-received movie?

‘Impulse’ hits Youtube Red this summer and is expected to be one of the service’s flagship series.

Source: Screen Rant