Lost in The Multiplex

Ellison claims that the movie has lifted elements from the plot of his award-winning short Repent, Harlequin! Said The Ticktockman. The 1965 story is set in a world where time has become strictly regulated and any deviation from the established schedule is a serious crime and punishable by having the proportionate amount of time taken from you. When a person's time has run out they are "turned off" by the Ticktockman.

In Time, however, is set in a world where the aging gene has been switched off at the age of 25 and those years are then used as currency, that can be added to through waged work or trade and subtracted in exchange for services. When a person's clock hits zero, they die.

I will leave it to you just how alike those concepts are but remember that Ellison famously sued James Cameron's The Terminator on similar charges, claiming the King of The World stole his ideas from his Outer Limits episodes Soldier and Demon with a Glass Hand. That case ended before it even got to court, with a very healthy settlement in Ellison's favour.

There are enough similarities between Ellison's work and the upcoming thriller to probably guarantee a tidy pay out, just to keep the cantankerous author quiet. Expect to see In Time ON time in the US on October 28th with the UK soon to follow.