Since making a name for himself with 2009’s The Disappearance Of Alice Creed, writer-director J Blakeson has been looking for his next job. He’s been attached to a few projects, but has either seen them trapped in development limbo or moved on for others to take over. The latest hot prospect is science fiction thriller **The Fifth Wave.
Adapted from Rick Yancey’s novel by Catch And Release’s Susannah Grant, the plot finds Earth under attack from a nasty extra-terrestrial race that have slowly been breaking down our resolve with a series of invasions. Apparently "after the first wave, only darkness remains. After the second, only the lucky escape. And after the third, only the unlucky survive. After the fourth wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.
"Now, it's the dawn of the fifth wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings that only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie's only hope for rescuing her brother – or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up…"
Graham King and Tobey Maguire are producing this one for Sony, with all involved hoping it might spawn a Hunger Games-style franchise. As for Blakeson, he’s also developing the adaptation of Hugh Howey’s brilliant dystopian book Wool, true-life Chicago fire tale To Hell And Gone (which boasts a script by Jonathan Nolan) and thriller Bad Blood And Trouble, which at one point had Bradley Cooper attached to star, but has shown so sign of movement recently.