When Edgar Wright exited Marvel‘s “Ant-Man” in the spring of 2014, it was the kind of move that would’ve frozen some directors, and left them wondering what to do next. But Wright didn’t waste much time in looking ahead, setting up two films in quick succession: “Baby Driver,” which opens in theaters this summer, and an adaptation of Andrew Smith‘s novel “Grasshopper Jungle.” And fresh off the heels of “Baby Driver,” that latter project is gaining heat.
THR reports that after a bidding war which included Netflix getting in the mix, New Regency has emerged with the rights to “Grasshopper Jungle,” snapping up the movie that was previously set up at Sony. Scott Rosenberg (“Con Air,” “High Fidelity,” “Gone In Sixty Seconds“) has penned the script for this story that’s said be a coming-of-age tale that’s “Stand By Me” meets “Attack The Block.” Here’s the Booklist synopsis:
Simmering within Ealing, Iowa, is a deadly genetically engineered plague capable of unleashing unstoppable soldiers—six-foot-tall praying mantises with insatiable appetites for food and sex. No one knows it, of course, until Austin and his best friend Robby accidentally release it on the world. An ever-growing plague of giant, flesh-hungry insects is bad enough, but Austin is also up to his eyeballs in sexual confusion—is he in love with Robby or his girlfriend, Shann? Both of them make him horny, but most things do. In an admittedly futile attempt to capture the truth of his history, painfully honest Austin narrates the events of the apocalypse intermingled with a detailed account of the “connections that spiderweb through time and place,” leading from his great-great-great-grandfather Andrzej in Poland to Shann’s lucky discovery of an apocalypse-proof bunker in her new backyard.
Damn, that sounds like another ambitious leap for Wright, but one we’re excited to see him take. No word on when this might roll, but certainly, it seems pieces are being put in place for this to be the director’s next project.
