With The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping just a few weeks away from release, director Francis Lawrence has now lined up his next project and will adapt the sci-fi book series Red Rising into a feature film.
Written by Pierce Brown, Red Rising takes place several centuries into the future where humanity has branched out throughout the solar system and become a Roman-like caste society ranked by colours. Ruled by the Golds, the Reds are the lowest in the society and used as slave labour. The story follows Darrow, a Red who lives deep underground Mars as he and his fellow Reds work to terraform the planet for the Golds. After he discovers they have been lied to he joins a rebellion group calls the Sons of Ares and undergoes a process to become a Gold with the intent to destroy their society from the inside. As he is sent to Mars’ Institute to train, he has to learn how to survive the cutthroat culture and deadly betrayals if he is to complete his mission.
Lawrence will direct for Paramount from a script by Justin Rhodes (Secret Level). Lawrence and Cameron MacConomy will produce for their about:blank production company alongside Francesco Goedhuis with Brown executive producing.
The Red Rising series consists of six books and a prequel graphic novel with the seventh and final novel currently being written. An adaptation has been in the works for a while with Universal previously looking to turn it into a film or TV series.
Lawrence most recently directed his adaptation of Stephen King’s The Long Walk and returned to The Hunger Games franchise after directing the previous five films. The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is another prequel focusing on a young Haymitch Abernathy during his Hunger Games. Lawrence is also tapped to direct a feature film of the video game BioShock for Netflix with a script also written by Rhodes.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping will be released on November 20th.
