The Matt Reeves-directed vampire pic The Passage has a new writer in Jason Keller. The horror film, based on a novel by Justin Cronin, is based in a dystopian future where a government experiment has turned most of the population into blood-thirsty undead. The Passage originally had producer Ridley Scott contemplating directing, although that didn’t end up working out. Reeves came on board as director with the understanding that he would hire a new writer, and THR reports that he’s handpicked Keller to work on the script and collaborate.
Originally, Scott was working with writer John Logan (Gladiator), who penned the original adaptation of Cronin’s novel in the first installment of a proposed film trilogy. Logan left the project, no doubt to work on other projects like the new James Bond film Bond 23.
When Reeves came on board to direct a few weeks ago, it was reported that he would oversee a re-write of the script developed by Scott and Logan. Now he’s chosen Keller, which seems an interesting choice as Keller doesn’t have many past films to refer him, though he has become a familiar name in the last few months. He’s been attached to a number of upcoming high-profile film projects like Gerard Butler-starrer Machine Gun Preacher and Relativity Media’s Snow White pic.
Reeves is tackling vampires again with this pic but the scope of this film is reportedly much larger than his Swedish film remake Let Me In. With Scott’s participation (helmer of sci fi epic Alien and Blade Runner), I have high hopes for this book-to-film adaptation. The rights to the book trilogy were acquired by Fox 2000 back in 2007.
Check out the plot summary below.
When a secret project to create a super-soldier backfires, a virus leads to a plague of vampiric revenants that wipes out most of the population. One of the few bands of survivors is the Colony, a FEMA-established island of safety bunkered behind massive banks of lights that repel the virals, or dracs—but a small group realizes that the aging technological defenses will soon fail. When members of the Colony find a young girl, Amy, living outside their enclave, they realize that Amy shares the virals’ agelessness, but not the virals’ mindless hunger, and they embark on a search to find answers to her condition