Lionsgate Taps Charlie Kaufman To Adapt YA Novel

News by Rob Hart April 24, 2012 5 comments
In:
Charlie Kaufman Chaos Walking

via Coming Soon: 

Lionsgate has announced that they're adapting Patrick Ness' Chaos Walking Trilogy--and they've tapped aspiring novelist Charlie Kaufman to provide the screenplay for the first book. 

The Knife of Never Letting Go was released in 2008 and has won a number of awards. Here's the synopsis: 

Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown.

But Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in a constant, overwhelming, never-ending Noise. There is no privacy. There are no secrets.

Or are there?

Just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd unexpectedly stumbles upon a spot of complete silence.

Which is impossible.

Prentisstown has been lying to him.

And now he's going to have to run...

Sounds pretty cool, and I'm excited to see what Kaufman could do with the material (though, to be fair, you could hand Kaufman the phonebook and he'd write a screenplay that would explode you brain). But am I the only one who reads Prentisstown as Penistown? 

Image of The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking, 1)
Author: Patrick Ness
Price: $7.74
Publisher: Candlewick (2009)
Binding: Paperback, 496 pages
Rob Hart

News by Rob Hart

Rob Hart is the class director at LitReactor, as well as the associate publisher for MysteriousPress.com. He's the author of The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella, and his short stories have appeared in publications like Shotgun Honey, Thuglit, Crime Factory, and Needle: A Magazine of Noir. His debut novel, New Yorked, will be published in Winter 2015 by Exhibit A Books. He lives in New York City, and you can find his website at www.robwhart.com.

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Comments

Ben Villeneuve's picture
Ben Villeneuve from Maine is reading Gardens of the Moon April 24, 2012 - 12:17pm

I read the first one. It was... okay. I'll be interested to see how the movie turns out, and if Charlie Kaufman is able to put his style in it. Despite what the synopsis might suggest, it's a fairly straightforward adventure story.

Joshua Chaplinsky's picture
Joshua Chaplinsky from New York is reading Let the Old Dreams Die April 24, 2012 - 12:42pm

Do they think they're gonna be able to reign Kaufman in on this?

SGJ's picture
SGJ from Midland, Texas (but in Boulder, Colorado, now) is reading weird fiction and horror fiction and science fiction and literary fiction and innovative fiction, or maybe a romance or a western or a magazine on bowhunting or show trucks or anthropology April 24, 2012 - 11:18pm

yeah, I agree: the first book's a pretty straightforward story. not sure what he'll do with it.

Jack Campbell Jr.'s picture
Jack Campbell Jr. from Lawrence, KS is reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy April 25, 2012 - 12:09pm

I am always excited to give Kaufman a chance. I haven't read the books, but probably will before the movie is produced, as long as Kaufman remains on it. He may be writing it now, but screenwriting is a funny thing. By the time an actual movie is produced, it may be someone else.

Kasey's picture
Kasey from the morally and physically challenging plains of Texas is reading 12pt. Courier font April 25, 2012 - 2:14pm

I haven't read these but I love the premise and will shuffle them somewhere in the deck of my reading - but like so many others, I can't help but feel that Kaufman will do no wrong.  I still think his "adaptation" of The Orchid Thief is one of the greatest out there, and one of the greatest examples of "out there."