An all-new movie adaptation of the classic novelLord of the Fliesis in the works, as Italian director Luca Guadagnino is in talks to direct the project. The movie comes from Known Universe, the production company founded by Lindsey Beer, Nicole Perlman, and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, with the company in talks to executive produce.
If the deals are signed,Luca Guadagninoand his producing partner Marco Morabito will also be producing. As the project is in the very early stages of development, no potential release date has yet been attached.
This is actually the second attempt in recent years to get a newLord of the Ringsmovie off the ground. Back in 2017, the studio announced afemale-centric movie version of the story, gender-swapping the roles of the main characters to make them all girls. At the time, Scott McGehee and David Siegel were attached to write and direct, though the announcement drew criticism for employing a male writer and director team to create a story focused on female characters. Apparently, the project in this form was ultimately nixed, and Guadagnino’s upcoming version will more closely resemble the original book by following a group of school boys.
Originally released in 1954,Lord of the Flieswas a novel written by Nobel prize winning author William Golding. The story depicts a group of young school boys who wind up stranded on a desert island with no apparent hope of an immediate rescue. This leaves it up to the children themselves to govern the island, and as you’re able to expect, things don’t exactly turn out well for all of them. Throughout the course of the story, the boys gradually become more savage and less civilized, becoming much more like a primitive version of humans. The book has long been considered one of the greatest literary works of all time, and it seems we were due to have another big screen adaptation.
In the past, there have been three feature movie adaptations ofLord of the Flies. The first arrived all the way back in 1963 from British writer and director Peter Brook, and is considered highly faithful to the source material. Many decades later, a second adaptation would be released in the form of a Filipino TV movie calledAlkitrang Dugo, which was directed by Lupita A. Concio. The most well-known of the three adaptations would be released in the United States in 1990 from director Harry Hook and writer Sarah Schiff. It has many key differences from the book it’s based on, but the movie has developed a rather strong cult following in the years since its release.
The upcoming adaptation should be in good hands under the direction of Guadagnino. The Italian filmmaker earned tremendous critical acclaim by helming the 2017 movieCall Me by Your Name, which even snagged an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. More recently, Guadagnino helmed the 2018 remake ofSuspiria. We’ll see how he does bringingLord of the Fliesto life. This news comes to us fromThe Hollywood Reporter.
