Back in 2012, David S. Goyer made headlines when he optioned the rights for Patrick Lee’s doomsday-thriller novel, The Breach.
He and Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers) teamed up for the adaptation when the news first hit, and now THR reports that the duo took the package to studios last week, with Lionsgate winning the rights in a deal late on Friday night.
Goyer’s adaptation of The Breach had had interest from Warner Bros., Fox, Relativity, and Millennium, but it’s believed that it was Lionsgate’s strong enthusiasm to fast-track the project that was the deciding factor.
Initially, there had been a question over whether Goyer would be directing as well as producing, and now it looks like that he will indeed be going behind the camera, keen to return to the director’s chair for his first film since 2009’s The Unborn.
Courtesy of Amazon, here’s the synopsis for the original novel:
Thirty years ago, in a facility buried beneath a vast Wyoming emptiness, an experiment gone awry accidentally opened a door. It is the world’s best-kept secret and its most terrifying. Trying to regain his life in the Alaskan wilds, ex-con/ex-cop Travis Chase stumbles upon an impossible scene: a crashed 747 passenger jet filled with the murdered dead, including the wife of the President of the United States. Though a nightmare of monumental proportions, it pales before the terror to come, as Chase is dragged into a battle for the future that revolves around an amazing artifact. Allied with a beautiful covert operative whose life he saved, Chase must now play the role he’s been destined for a pawn of incomprehensible forces or humankind’s final hope as the race toward Apocalypse begins in earnest. Because something is loose in the world. And doomsday is not only possible . . . it is inevitable.
Justin Rhodes is penning the script, with di Bonaventura and Goyer both set to produce.
Lee’s original novel is the first in a trilogy, which naturally means the potential for a new franchise for Lionsgate, who already have The Expendables, The Hunger Games, and Kick-Ass in their roster.
Best known for his work writing Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, Goyer has more recently co-written the pilot for NBC’s Constantine, and has worked on the story with Zack Snyder for the latter’s upcoming untitled Batman vs. Superman movie.
No word yet on when we can expect production to begin on The Breach, but if Lionsgate won the bid for the very fact that they’re keen to move it along quickly, then we should hopefully here more news on this soon.
