Adapting Chuck Palahniuk’s work for the screen has always been a tricky proposition, though some have managed it to varying degrees of success and tough box office results, as with David Fincher’s Fight Club or Clark Gregg’s Choke. Now the author himself is involved with filmmakers Andy Mingo and Josh Leake to bring Lullaby to life.
First published in 2002, the book saw Palahniuk channelling his feelings about his father’s murder into a tome following Carl Streator, a newspaper reporter who is sent to write about a series of cases of sudden infant death syndrome after his own child died. He discovers that children – and some adults – are dying after hearing an African chant considered a “culling song” that has made its way into a book of poems. Streator memorises the poem, and begins using it to kill people, while also realising its terrible power, starting a road trip to destroy all the copies of the book.
Mingo is hoping that Palahniuk – who he’s already collaborated with on a short film based on a story from the author’s new collection Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread – will co-write the script for him to direct. The aim is to have the film shooting early next year.