HBO Max is reportedly developing an adaptation of CNN’s Jake Tapper’s first novel “The Hellfire Club” and has attached “The Revenant” co-writer Mark L. Smith to write a script and executive produce alongside Cliff Roberts.
The 2018 book tells the story of Charlie Marder, a young Freshman Congressman who arrives in 1950s Washington D.C. after the mysterious death of his predecessor. Finding himself thrust into the dangerous waters of politics at the height of Joe McCarthy’s ‘Red Scare,’ he and his zoologist wife Margaret must quickly learn who is friend and who is foe.
A mysterious fatal car accident thrusts Charlie and Margaret into an underworld of backroom deals, secret societies, and a plot that could change the course of history. Tapper is one of CNN’s most high-profile anchors on shows such as “The Lead” and “The State of the Union”. HBO Max is set to launch on May 27th.
That’s not the only book deal today as Plan B Entertainment and Warner Brothers has acquired Edward Ashton’s sci-fi novel “Mickey7” for a film adaptation which Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner will produce.
The story follows an ‘expendable,’ a person on missions who is sent on the most dangerous, even suicidal jobs. When an expendable dies, a new body is regenerated with most of the memories intact. Mickey7 is the seventh iteration of one who is undergoing an existential identity crisis, keeping his successor’s regeneration a secret, and negotiating with an ice world’s native species to colonize their planet.
Finally, Sony Pictures is developing an English-language feature adaptation of Genki Kawamura’s bestselling Japanese book “If Cats Disappeared from the World”. Kit Steinkellner (“Sorry for Your Loss”) will pen the screenplay with Kawamura, Masi Oka, Will Gluck and Jodi Hildebrand producing and “Godzilla” studio Toho backing the project.
The story follows The Young Postman, a man with only months to live. Estranged from his family and living alone with only his cat, Cabbage, he makes a Faustian pact with the devil – in exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, the postman will be granted one extra day of life. Thus begins a very strange week that brings the young postman and his beloved cat to the brink of existence.
Source: Deadline
