There aren’t many films with journeys to reach the big screen as torrid as “Chaos Walking.” Director Doug Liman‘s adaptation of the first book in the young-adult series by Patrick Ness has hit snag after snag on its way to theaters. Now, over nine years after Lionsgate first acquired the rights to the novels, a trailer for the film has been released, and fans of the series get their first glimpse of the New World onscreen.
READ MORE: Long-Delayed ‘Chaos Walking’ Finally Gets A January 2021 Release Date
Set in a dystopian near-future on an alien planet, “Chaos Walking” follows Todd Hewitt, a boy brought up to believe a pathogen has killed all the women in his colony Prentisstown. The virus also makes all living beings susceptible to “noise,” an ability that hears the thoughts of animals and other people in an ever-present and never-ending cascade of images, words, and sounds. After Todd stumbles upon a patch of silence and a young woman named Viola Eade, unaffected by noise and who created the silence, the two go on the run together to uncover the secrets of his colony’s past and the real history of the New World.
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The movie stars Tom Holland as Todd Hewitt and Daisy Ridley as Viola Eade, but there’s a lot more talent besides its leading pair. Mads Mikkelsen, Demían Bichir, Nick Jonas, Cynthia Erivo, Kurt Sutter, and David Oyelowo round out the cast.
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“Chaos Walking” has gained a lot of notoriety for its troubled development and production. The movie’s script, first helmed by Charlie Kaufman, underwent numerous drafts with six different writers providing revisions. Liman’s principal production wrapped in November 2017, but poor test screenings resulted in extensive reshoots scheduled for late 2018. Reshoots, with director Fede Álvarez brought on as a consultant to Liman (a director with a history of chaotic film productions), didn’t get underway until April 2019, due to Holland’s and Ridley’s commitments to blockbusters elsewhere. Then the ongoing COVID pandemic delayed the movie’s release even further.
Does Lionsgate have another successful young adult film series like “The Hunger Games” in store for its fans? Or does the long gestation of “Chaos Walking” portend disaster? Audiences find out when the film finally releases on January 22, 2021.
