The Chaos Walking trilogy of books – The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and The Answer, and Monsters of Men – is being turned into a trilogy of movies, with Lionsgate having acquired the rights to the series by Patrick Ness. Chaos Walking was written for young adults and has won the Carnegie Medal.
The trilogy tells the story of a dystopian future in which humans have colonized another planet. The problem is that privacy is no longer possible as all thoughts are audible thanks to an infection. A war breaks out after a fledgling dictator tries to take over the human settlements. We follow the young man who is the only one who can prevent the destruction of the planet.
Lionsgate co-chief operating officer and Motion Picture Group chairman Joe Drake said of the acquisition:
“A sense of urgency and momentum permeates these stories — it makes the books ones you can’t put down, and will make the movies ones you can’t miss on the big screen. But apart from the story elements, the world in the stories is so vividly imagined. These are books, much like The Hunger Games, that we feel truly beg to be brought to life on film.”
Lionsgate is already bringing The Hunger Games to the big screen, and the Chaos Walking trilogy has been likened to that series of books. I can’t help feeling this is an attempt to find the next Harry Potter/Twilight series which will bypass its genre and go mainstream in a big way. Not that that’s a bad thing, I guess. But it is a little hit and miss.
