Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day: Resurgence and Hollywood’s harbinger of cinematic destruction, is attached to an adaptation of Blake Crouch’s bestselling sci-fi novel Dark Matter.
Deadline has the scoop, revealing that Emmerich has entered negotiations with Sony Pictures to wrangle Crouch’s page-turner onto the big screen. Matt Tolmach will produce the pic, after striking a pre-emptive $1.25 million deal for Dark Matter more than two years ago. Best known for his work on the Wayward Pines novel trilogy, Crouch’s new IP is inherently cinematic in that it follows a quantum physicist (Jason Dessen) who gives up the dream of breaking new ground in the field of science to carve out a family life in Chicago – white picket fence and all.
Haunted by the choices he made, Dark Matter really kicks into gear when Jason inexplicably finds himself in an alternate timeline, and you can get the gist of Crouch’s mind-bending story, below.
Jason Dessen, a quantum physicist, once had a brilliant research career ahead of him. But after a girlfriend’s unexpected pregnancy and the birth of a son, this future was derailed. Now a professor at a small Chicago college with a warm and loving family life, the physicist is abducted into a world in which his quantum many-worlds theory has become a fully realized technology for inter-dimensional transfer. In the parallel world, he did not marry his girlfriend and they never had a son. He is determined to get back to his other life back, but nefarious powers in the alternate reality conspire to stop him from revealing the criminal lengths they have gone to create the world-hopping technology.
Though his work in the sci-fi genre is defined by the Independence Day franchise – not to mention Stargate and The Day After Tomorrow – Roland Emmerich is an interesting choice for the gig. Coming off the back of the wholly disappointing Resurgence, a foray into a different breed of science fiction – less effects, more story – may just be what the doctor ordered.
Not to be confused with Syfy’s TV series of the same name, Sony’s Dark Matter adaptation is now beginning to spark into life. We’ll keep you posted as these negotiations between Emmerich and the studio unfold.
