Daniel H. Wilson seems to be the ‘in’ author in Hollywood at the moment, with studios snapping up his books before he’s even finished writing then. Robopocalypse was purchased by Dreamworks when it was still a work-in-progress, with the script started before Wilson has finished writing the book (and now Steven Spielberg is all set to direct). The author’s How To Survive A Robot Uprising is also in the works, with Jack Black attached.
Now another of his novels has been bought before he’s completed it, with Deadline reporting that Summit Entertainment has just closed a deal for AMP, the sci-fi novel Wilson is currently working on, with Alex Proyas attached to direct. Working Title and Paramount were also apparently interested, but it was Summit that won out.
The book is set in the near future and revolves around cybernetic technology that was created to help disabled people, but which ends up turning them into supermen. It’s said that its mix of scifi action and political allegory is reminiscent of District 9 (although seeing as Wilson hasn’t finished writing it yet, how do they know?).
Wilson apparently went with Summit because he wanted Alex Proyas to work on the movie version, having been impressed by the likes of Dark City, I Robot and Knowing, and indeed if AMP is a mix of sci-fi and allegory, Proyas would seen to be the man for the job!
The next step is to hire a screenwriter, who’ll take Wilson’s novel pages and draft them into script form, as the author writes them, in much the same way Drew Goddard (Cloverfield) had to do for Robopocalypse.