Studio’s New Adaptations Play With Your Mind
Recent purchases for Fox Animation, Blumhouse Television, and Amblin Television are out to twist the viewers minds with The Memory Thief and Phenomena.
Last year, Fox Animation introduced a hybrid strategy to create a slate of family films. Their recent acquisition for a live-action/animated feature is The Memory Thief written by Bryce Moore.
The story is about 12-year-old Benji who suddenly has the ability to dive in and out of people’s minds to steal their memories. He is able to use this power to save his parent’s marriage, however this leads to him learning cost of manipulating memories.
Perrin Chiles and Marshal Lewy from Adaptive Studios will produce with Shawn Levy and Dan Levine from Levy’s 21 Laps joining them. Nate Hopper, who was hired to spearhead Fox’s hybrid strategy, and Rachel Yeung will oversee for Fox.
The Memory Thief is the fourth big book deal for 21 Laps this year. They have The Age of Miracles at AMC, Three Dark Crowns and A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising, both also at Fox.
Moore’s book was published by Adaptive Books of Adaptive Studios. It was originally released exclusively at Barnes & Noble in September 2016 and everywhere else this month. Moore is currently writing the sequel to the novel, hopefully turning this into a franchise for the studio.
On the smaller screen, Blumhouse Television and Amblin Television have joined together for the right to Annie Jacobsen’s upcoming book Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government’s Investigations Into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis to develop as a TV series.
Phenomena follows the U.S. government’s hidden history of military and intelligence agency experiments while researching extrasensory perception (ESP), including mental telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition for defense purposes. Jacobsen’s book recounts stories from scientists and psychics who granted top secret clearances to conduct these experiments from government agencies, including CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, Navy, Air Force, and Army.
Jacobsen will executive produce with Amblin TV’s Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey, and Blumhouse TV’s Marci Wiseman and Jeremy Gold. This is not the first time these two companies have joined together. They partnered for the 2012 ABC horror drama The River.
Jacobsen’s other books include New York best-sellers Area 51, Operation Paperclip, and The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top Secret Military Research Agency. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2016 for The Pentagon’s Brain.
Phenomena was released in late March.
