PHOTOS: 10 Classic Sci-Fi Movies With Better Effects Than Modern Films

Radio Free Albemuth stars several faces you may recognize from other recent projects: Shea Whigham, who plays Eli on Showtime’s Boardwalk Empire, Katheryn Winnick, who stars on History’s Vikings, and musician/actress Alanis Morissette.

Here, The Hollywood Reporter debuts a trailer for the film, which is set in an alternate reality in 1985. Berkeley record store clerk Nick Brady (Jonathan Scarfe) begins to experience strange visions transmitted from an extraterrestrial source he calls VALIS. He moves with his family to L.A., where he becomes a successful music executive with a secret mission to overthrow the oppressive government led by U.S. President Fremont (Scott Wilson). With the help of his best friend, sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick (Whigham), and a beautiful, mysterious woman named Silvia (Morissette), Nick finds himself drawn into a conspiracy of mind-shattering proportions.

The film's supporting cast includes Ashley Greene, Jon Tenney and Rich Sommer.

The book Radio Free Albemuth was written in 1976 and posthumously published in 1985. Several major sci-fi films are adaptations of Dick's books, including 1982's Blade Runner, from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968); Total Recall (1990), from We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1966); and Minority Report (2002), from the 1956 book of the same name.

While most of the previous films were big-budget projects, for Radio Free Albemuth Simon chose the indie route in order to "have the freedom to make a movie that captures all the other aspects that reader-fans like myself love -- Dick's dark humor, politics, visionary metaphysics, borderline paranoia and especially his tender view of the human condition,” he said.

FDM's CEO Susan Jackson brokered the deal directly with Simon’s Discovery Productions, which will join forces with FDM on the release. Discovery was repped in the deal by Matthew Fladell.

E-mail: Rebecca.Ford@THR.com

Twitter: @Beccamford