Director Jeff Nichols has already attracted plenty of attention for his second Michael Shannon collaboration, Take Shelter. And there is positive buzz on his follow-up, the Matthew McConaughey-centric Mud. Now he’s looking to the future for other directing gigs, and seems ready to tackle the true story of Taylor Wilson, a 14-year-old science prodigy.
Peter Chernin’s company has bagged the rights to Tom Clynes’ Popular Science mag article entitled The Boy Who Played With Fusion.
Nichols is developing a film about Wilson, an incredibly smart and curious lad whose parents nurtured his talents even though they didn’t realise quite how he’d become so gifted. When the boy’s grandmother fell ill with cancer, he began to experiment to harness short-lived isotopes that can kill the malignant cells, hoping that it could be turned into something hospitals could use. He went on to develop his idea as a dirty bomb detection system for shipping containers.
Wilson’s story will be contrasted with that of another smart child whose brilliance was not given the necessary encouragement and whose clandestine backyard shed reactor project let to a near-disaster. Moral of the story: encourage your genius kids! Unless they’re named Khan Noonien Singh...