After kicking off the “Twilight” franchise and promptly being replaced by an array of different (and, it should be noted, male) directors, director Catherine Hardwicke has been somewhat adrift. She did a decidedly “Twilight”-ish take on “Red Riding Hood” for Warner Bros. before the fairy tale craze really bloomed, and just completed a contemporary thriller called “Plush” that she co-wrote. But now she’s headed back to the bestseller list, with an adaptation of Karen Thompson Walker‘s buzzy debut novel “The Age of Miracles” for River Road Entertainment. The adaptation was written by “Hanna” scribe Seth Lochhead and will be produced by River Road’s founder Bill Pohlad.
Published last summer, “The Age of Miracles” (which was named one of the best books of the year by BookPage, Publishers Weekly, Booklist and, most importantly, O: The Oprah Magazine) is an apocalyptic novel with an ingenious twist: it’s told from the point-of-view of a ten-year old girl named Julia. A natural phenomenon dubbed “the slowing” causes the earth’s rotation to slow, stretching out time seemingly endlessly, causing many things in Julia’s suburban existence to falter and then slip away. Look for the role of Julia to be a highly sought after prize amongst Hollywood’s young actors.
River Road Entertainment, which has produced Terrence Malick‘s “The Tree of Life,” Ang Lee‘s “Brokeback Mountain,” and Doug Liman‘s “Fair Game” (amongst others) has Steve McQueen‘s historical epic “Twelve Years A Slave,” starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt, coming out this winter, and is currently prepping “Love & Mercy,” a potentially problematic Brian Wilson biopic that will be directed by Pohland himself.
No dates have been given about a potential start date for “The Age of Miracles,” but with a script already in the bag, production will undoubtedly commence sometime later this year.