Sony Pictures will adapt Daniel Suarez’s 2014 novel Influx, and has tapped Bloodshot director S.F. Wilson to helm the film, reports Deadline. Zak Olkewicz, the screenwriter behind the upcoming adaptation of R.L. Stein’s Fear Street, will write the screenplay.
Suarez is known for his Michael Crichton-esque techno-thrillers that combine near-future technology and plenty of action, such as Daemon (about computer programming), Change Agent (about CRISPR), Delta-V (asteroid mining and the private space industry), and Influx.
That novel is set in the near future, and follows a physicist named Jon Grady who created a device that he called the gravity mirror, something that could completely change the world. But shortly after that discovery, a mysterious organization called the Bureau of Technology Control breaks into his lab, seizes his equipment and locks him up in a high-tech prison called Hibernity. The BTC holds back major groundbreaking technologies, worried about the influence and disruption that they represent.
So glad to see this #INFLUX deal come together–especially now. @DavidSFWilson and I have wanted to work together for years. No doubt he'll do an amazing job bringing INFLUX to life @SonyPictures. A shout-out also to @ZOlkewicz and Todd Black's @EAfilms.https://t.co/HyqzyJynhN
— Daniel Suarez (@itsDanielSuarez) April 14, 2020
The book is a fun read, and it’s certainly a solid base for a big-budget blockbuster, especially from someone like Wilson, who recently helmed a techno-thriller of his own, Bloodshot, starring Vin Diesel. (It also had the misfortune of being released on the eve of the COVID-19 lockdown, and was subsequently released to VOD.)
This isn’t the first time that the book has been picked up for feature film treatment: in 2014, shortly before the book’s publication, 20th Century Fox acquired the rights, but that adaptation ultimately never came to pass. Maybe the second time is the charm.
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Influx