Hollywood has been working on a new adaptation of Logan’s Run for years, but has never managed to put it together in a way that’s allowed it to get out of the starting gates on onto the screen. However recently new impetus has been given to the project with producer Joel Silver and Akiva Goldsman are pushing hard and getting Carl Erik Rinsch on board to direct.
Now THR reports that they’ve hired Alex Garland to write the screenplay. He would seem to be a good choice, with his work on 28 Days Later and Sunshine showing that he has a knack for creating screenplays that are unnerving, entertaining and also at least a little bit thoughful. Rather than basing the script on the 1976 film, Garland will go back to the source novel, Run, by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson.
Although the book had a similar premise of over-population leading to a time limit being placed on life, with ‘Sandmen’ there to ensure anyone who tries to escape death is captured and killed, it had a greatly expanded world compared to the film, which modern effects to could allow us to see in ways that defeated the mid-70s adapatations. The main plot follows Logan, who is a Sandman who is forced to go on the run.
Garland has also written the screenplay for the upcoming Never Let Me Go, the trailer for which arrived yesterday, about clones raised to provide organ donations, showing he’s become the go-to guy for the thinking man’s speculative fiction screenplays.