While he might have his hands full with other projects at the moment, Matthew Vaughn is by no means gearing down his search for fresh fodder to turn into films. He’s just splashed some cash to buy the rights to Max Barry’s next novel, Lexicon.
Continuing Barry’s fondness for riffing on branding, identity and government control – as seen in previous works such as Jennifer Government and Company – Lexicon explores a world where words can be used as weapons, wielded by gifted types who know how to persuade anyone to do their bidding.
It’s all wrapped up in a secretive global organisation that adheres to strict rules. Then a spanner is chucked in the works when one of the most gifted (and troubled) members, goes and falls in love.
In true filmmaker fashion, Vaughn has had a sneaky peek at the galleys for Barry’s book, since the novel itself doesn’t actually hit shelves until next year.
As for the film, it’ll also be a while, assuming it makes it through development, since Vaughn, who plans to write (or co-write) the script, hasn’t started on it yet. And he already has the likes of the fast-developing X-Men: First Class sequel and producing the next Kick-Ass movie on his To Do list, amongst other things…