Fox is developing Joe Hill’s upcoming horror novel “The Fireman” with Louis Leterrier directing and Temple Hill partners Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen producing.
Hill’s book, set to be pubished in May by William Morrow, takes place amid a worldwide plague of spontaneous combustion called Draco Incendia Trychophyton or Dragonscale, giving rise to ruthless Cremation Squads to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. The titlular Fireman is a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.
It’s the fourth Hollywood project based on a novel by Hill, the son of Stephen King. He previously wrote “NOS4A2,” which is in development as an AMC series; “Horns,” the basis of a 2014 movie starring Daniel Radcliffe; and “Heart Shaped Box,” which is in development at Langley Park Productions.
Steve Asbell is overseeing “The Fireman” at Fox.
Leterrier directed Lionsgate’s “Now You See Me” and the upcoming “The Brothers Grimsby” for Sony. Fox-based Temple Hill produced the Twilight and Maze Runner franchises along with “The Fault in Our Stars” and “A Good Day to Die Hard.”
Hill was repped in the deal by Sean Daily at Hotchkiss and Associates on behalf of The Choate Agency. Leterrier is repped by CAA and Management 360.
The news was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.
