Paul Haggis will write and direct a film adaptation of Paolo Bacigalupi’s 2010 Printz Award-winning post-apocalyptic YA novel Ship Breaker. The novel, set after the melting of the polar ice caps, contemplates a world in which many major cities are underwater and follows a young boy named Nailer who tries to help a girl named Nita escape a blackmail plot. Haggis’ film will be the first in a planned film trilogy.
Haggis is interested in exploring themes of climate change in an “oblique” way. “I liked the idea that you could take that idea [of a post-apocalyptic world ignorant of the 21st century] and explore hopes and fears through that… climate change is a concern of mine, and taking on a film that is not just a narrative about that is attractive.”
Haggis won an Oscars for writing Million Dollar Baby in 2004 and for directing Crash in 2005.