Some people just aren’t satisfied with one of their books being snapped up by Hollywood for adaptations. Oh, no… There are some, like Daniel H Wilson, who just have to make it three. Yes, Wilson must be feeling like the luckiest scribbler on the planet today, as yet another of his stories – sci-fi tome AMP – has been bought by Summit for Alex Proyas to direct.
AMP, which follows the development of new cybernetic technology that is intended to help the disabled and ends up turning some of them into superheroes, isn’t even finished yet. Wilson is still busy writing the novel and plans to have it turned page by page into a script by a yet-to-be-chosen screenwriter.
Summit won the rights after an auction that, according to Deadline, also featured Working Title and Paramount. But Wilson liked Proyas’ take and his plan to keep the budget low, shooting in Australia with his own production company.
If they’re looking for a script wrangler who has some experience with turning Wilson’s in-progress work into filmmaking source material, they could do worse than hire Cloverfield's Drew Goddard, who has already cranked out one script that way. You might have heard of it -– a little title called **Robopocalypse which no less a director than Steven Spielberg plans to start working on in January 2012. The book itself will arrive on shelves in June 2011.
And then there’s How To Survive A Robot Uprising, the comedic advice guide that Wilson published in 2005 and is now being developed for Jack Black to star in.
Next week, expect Wilson’s Amazon Christmas wish list to be sold so that William Goldman can adapt it for James Cameron to turn into a multi-part sci-fi epic.