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Comment by mitchtbaum | Hacker News Reader

  Why don't we have a decent Tesla movie?

Because we have yet to make one. How do you and your friends like making movies?

  Yet, where's the big time Hollywood treatment?

That isn't a story they want to tell. __period__ Why would they? What benefit of mass entertainment would it serve? Hint: Look at the etymology of `entertain`.

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> "That isn't a story they want to tell. __period__ Why would they? What benefit of mass entertainment would it serve? Hint: Look at the etymology of `entertain`."

Tesla was an interesting character and had an interesting life. If you're concerned about whether his story could be dramatised, it's worth remembering we had films about Stephen Hawking and Alan Turing last year, both of which were successful at the box office. I see no reason why we couldn't do the same for Tesla.

The issue is as much "is there an established audience" as "could the story be dramatised". I probably have a biased perspective because Turing, Hawking and I are British, but my guess would be a lot more people at least recognise their names than would recognise Tesla's (aside from as an electric car).

Really? I feel like most people outside of CS/Mathematics have little to no idea who Alan Turing is. Tesla, on the other hand, has a seemingly large cult following due to the strange, almost mythological details of his life and inventive process. I've known plenty of people who knew more about who Tesla was than they even did about Hawking.

I think most people would at least have heard of the Turing test.

I don't know, I recognize that this is purely anecdotal but I still feel like more people are familiar with things like the Tesla coil, I mean there was even a fairly popular hair band named after him.

In my experience advances in the field of AI have only in the past 10-15 years shown a noticeable rise in awareness of the Turing test. Am I in some sort of minority and haven't realized it?

Hmm... there was a successful movie about John Nash, and I'm pretty sure that Tesla is more widely-known than Nash.

Wow, how off mark.. I should've searched first, rather than going off history alone:

http://cinemanerdz.com/the-unbelievable-number-of-tesla-film...

I wonder how well these independent studios can do and what angle these commercial studios will use.

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