Neil Cross, the creator behind the acclaimed Idris Elba-led BBC series “Luther”, has been hired to pen a new adaptation of the sci-fi classic “The Day of the Triffids” for Ghost House Pictures reports Heat Vision.
John Wyndam penned the 1951 post-apocalyptic classic which has since became a landmark of science-fiction literature.
Set in the near future, the story has a meteorite shower hitting the Earth which renders those who looked at it (almost the entire population) blind.
With civilisation having collapsed, triffids – tall, ambulatory, seemingly sentient genetically engineered plants with poisonous whip stingers – start to become the dominant life form on the planet.
The property was previously adapted to the screen three times – once into a British film in 1962, and twice for television. The first small screen attempt, a 1981 BBC mini-series, remains the most acclaimed translation of the work thus far with scenes from it inspiring moments in Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” and Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds”.
More recently came the second adaptation in late 2010, a critically slammed BBC1 mini-series starring Dougray Scott, Eddie Izzard, Brian Cox and Joely Richardson which pulled in 6.1 million viewers.
Cross also scripted two upcoming Guillermo Del Toro-produced genre films – “Mama” and “Midnight Delivery” – as well as for a polish of Del Toro’s own 2013 monster mashup feature “Pacific Rim”.
Mark Gordon, Michael Preger, Don Murphy, Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert will produce.
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