The Young Adult market has made a killer impact in the movie industry with film franchises like ‘Twilight’ and ‘The Hunger Games’ making big bucks at the box office. Fox, of course, knows this and has always been on the lookout for the next big thing. Their guess is that the next big thing will be James Frey’s upcoming young adult series that all starts with ‘Endgame’.
Frey is known primarily for his work on his suppposed memoire, ‘A Million Little Pieces’, which spent fifteen weeks straight in the ‘New York Times’ Best Seller list helped by an endorsement by Oprah Winfrey when she selected it for her Oprah’s Book Club. It was later found the the novel was not a true memoir.
While we don’t know much about the book, several sources have mentioned that it has a ‘Hunger Games’-like tone. Here’s a partial description:
In a world similar to Earth, there are 12 bloodlines, or races. Each bloodline has a champion between the ages of 13 and 17 who is trained as a warrior and is always ready to do battle. When they turn 18, the teen warrior behind them gets promoted. This has been the case for hundreds of years, but no one remembers why — they’re always ready for some sort of battle to take place, but it never does. But the tradition continues. And then one day they’re called to fight, and all the bloodlines but the winners will be exterminated. They’re fighting to be the last race.
‘Endgame’ had recently been picked up by HarperCollins for publishing rights for the series and Fox put down $2 million to acquire the film rights with Temple Hill partners Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen. The deal shouldn’t be too surprising that Fox picked it up as HarperCollins is their sister company. Somehow Google is apparently involved as well but no solid details on how. Though with ‘State of Syn’ having a Google-Glass tie-in, this could be a trend with films going forward. While no director is attached to the film just yet, part of the deal with Fox studios has Frey signed on as the sole writer to scribe the screenplay.
So does the plot sound like something that would make a good film or is this another young adult cash grab? After all, not every piece of Young Adult material ends well as seen with ‘The Mortal Instruments‘, though it did well enough in the box office for the sequel to still happen!
Source: Deadline