There was a time when, like the dinosaurs in his Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton strode the sci-fi literary and cinematic world as a colossus, commanding rich deals to turn his books into blockbusters. His last book, Micro is now coming to the screen via Kon-Tiki and Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge co-director Joachim Rønning.
Micro is one of the oddities of Crichton's career, because it was unfinished at the time of his death in 2008. Richard Preston stepped in to complete it for publication in 2011 and the rights were snapped up back in 2015 by Steven Spielberg's Amblin company, with Frank Marshall still aboard to produce alongside Sherri Crichton and Laurent Bouzereau.
Goosebumps' Darren Lemke has written the script, which finds a group of graduate students brought to Hawaii by the lure of jobs at a mysterious biotech company, which then shrinks them down to tiny size and maroons them in the rainforest, forcing them to use their wits and know-how to survive. A blend of Crichton's Timeline and Honey, I shrunk The Kids, if you will. Universal will be in charge of getting it into cinemas.
Rønning has plenty of projects on his plate waiting for he and co-director Espen Sandberg to finish working on and promoting the new Pirates movie (which arrives on 26 May). He's attached to direct Tom Cruise in Methuselah and shot a pilot for US network ABC.
Tom Cruise And Pirates Of The Caribbean Director Take On Methuselah