Variety reports that Maverick Films is producing a feature film based on a 1971 Stanford University psychology experiment. In the experiment, 18 students were placed in a prison setting, 9 as prisoners and 9 as guards. Within a few short days, the previously normal, healthy students playing guards began torturing the "inmates" and the students playing prisoners began to call themselves by their assigned number. One prisoner developed a psychosomatic body rash after having his parole denied, another 3 broke down emotionally and had to be released. A rebellion was hatched on the second day and subsequently quelled - in part by spraying inmates with a fire extinguisher (not a prop or intended tool of the experiment.) The two-week experiment was aborted after just six days because it had gotten out of control.

Scary stuff. The website for the experiment has a slide show that walks you through the entire study and contains numerous discussions on the various questions brought up by the experiment. Several adaptations and documentaries about the experiment have been made in the past but most, reportedly, have drifted from fact into over-the-top fiction. This version will attempt to be true to the source material, which seems plenty dramatic, and very telling, to me.