The director of Bloodshot is taking aim at a very different kind of tech thriller.
A movie version of Daniel Suarez’s 2014 SF novel, Influx, is currently in the works, according to Deadline. Director David S.F. Wilson is on board after Sony Pictures purchased the film rights.
The novel tells the tale of Jon Grady, an independent scientific researcher who invents a device that can manipulate gravity. This catches the attention of a shady U.S. government organization called the Bureau of Technology Control, which keeps cutting-edge tech under wraps. When Grady refuses to do BTC’s bidding, they throw him in their private prison, Hibernity, which houses other captive geniuses.
Kirkus’ 2013 review of Influx said that “the story is atomic-weighted with science terminology from college-level texts” but noted—somewhat presciently, as it turns out—that “the narrative rockets along right up to a good-versus-evil battle that would be better resolved on the IMAX screen than the page.”
Zak Olkewicz is set to adapt the Prometheus Award–winning novel; his only previous writing credit is for Fear Street, a feature-film adaptation of R.L. Stine’s middle-grade horror series, which is currently in post-production and expected to be released later this year. Influx will be Wilson’s second outing as director, after Bloodshot, the recent action movie starring Vin Diesel as the titular Valiant Comics character—a technologically enhanced assassin.
Suarez’s first novel, Daemon, was initially self-published and then picked up by Dutton in 2009; his latest SF thriller, Delta-V, was released last year.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
