Adaptations 4 You: 21 Laps Continue Their Sci-Fi Run
With the successes of Oscar nominee Arrival and the Netflix hit Stranger Things, Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps is going to continue down the sci-fi rabbit hole. They now have deals for the adaptations of four different stories: Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles, Raymond A. Villareal’s A People’s History Of The Vampire Uprising, Larry Niven’s Inconstant Moon, and Kendare Blake’s Three Dark Crowns.
The Age of Miracles is Karen Thompson Walker’s debut novel, published by Random House in 2012. It follows a Southern California teen when she and her family wake up to find the rotation of the Earth has slowed down. The days and nights grow longer, gravity is affected, and people begin to fall sick to a new mysterious illness. She is forced to deal with the disasters of everyday life, struggling with her parents’ marriage falling apart and the loss of friends.
The book received positive reviews and been translated into many major languages. It was also nominated as part of the Waterstones 11 literary award in 2012.
Sinead Daly (The Get Down) will pen the script. AMC, who acquired the TV rights, will have Rafael Ruthchild and Allie Moore join Levy’s producing team of himself, Dan Levine, and Emily Morris.
Next, in the light of Paramount’s pulling of World War Z 2, it looks like 21 Laps and 20th Century Fox are ready to step into its place. Fox has acquired the rights to A People’s History Of The Vampire Uprising. Levy will direct as well as produce with Dan Cohen.
The book was sold to Little, Brown in a four-publisher auction and will be printed at Mulholland Books and published next year. It is the first of a four volume series from Raymond A. Villareal and told in an oral history format.
Characterized as a World War Z with vampires, the novel is an “oral history” of the appearance, assimilation, and ultimately epic and violent confrontation of vampires with the human race. Chronicling the rise of The Gloaming (the name the vampires have given themselves) are multiple points of view, including a CDC investigator who discovers a mysterious virus, an FBI agent who forms the Gloaming Crimes Unit; a civil rights attorney’s analysis of the Gloaming Equal Rights Act, an obsessive Vatican librarian; and, of course, TMZ.
Fox and 21 Laps will continue their partnership with the adaptation of sci-fi legend Larry Niven’s short story, Inconstant Moon. Joining Levy will be Dan Cohen (Stranger Things) with James Ponsoldt (The Circle) directing and Daniel Casey (Kin, 10 Cloverfield Lane) penning the script.
The Hugo Award winning Best Short Story, Inconstant Moon, was released in the 1971 short story collection All the Myriad Ways. It follows a Los Angeles couple who notice the moon is unusually brighter and realize that a massive solar flare has destroyed the Eastern Hemisphere, which will eventually cause catastrophe for the Western Hemisphere. They prepare for what could be the last night on Earth.
The story was adapted in 1996 for The Outer Limits television series.
Finally, also with Fox, 21 Laps will be producing a feature film based on Kendare Blake’s young adult’s novel Three Dark Crowns, which is the first of a series of four. Levy will produce with Dan Levine and Natalie Lehmann.
Published by HarperTeen last September, the story follows triplets who are equal heirs to the crown. Each have a magical powers, one controls the elements a the snap of her fingers, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons, and one who can bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions. Ascending the throne is not a matter of birthright; they have to fight to the death for it beginning the night of their sixteenth birthday.
The second book will be released this September. The following three novels will also become movies, based on the success of the first.
