Yahoo News ‘Free Solo’ Helmers Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi To Direct Screen Adaptation Of Michael Crichton James Patterson Bestseller ‘Eruption’
EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-winning Free Solo directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi have come aboard as part of the package to direct Eruption, the novel by Michael Crichton and James Patterson that was just published atop every bestseller list.
The duo will be in the center of meetings to be held next week in which they’ll pitch the book, a large scale earth-threatening thriller about a volcano explosion in Hawaii. At the same time, Jim and Vasarhelyi might also be directing a documentary on the life of the late great Crichton.
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Eruption is a big scale disaster novel tale that Crichton spent 20 years working on before his untimely death. The novel just went out to studios and other major buyers. It’s expected to be a big sale, continuing the legacy of the brilliant author behind everything from Jurassic Park, Westworld, Twister, ER and so many others.
The filmmakers made their narrative debut with Nyad, the Netflix drama about Diana Nyad’s impossible swim from Cuba to Florida at age 60. That film drew Oscar noms for its leads, Annette Bening and Jodie Foster. Eruption will be their biggest challenge to date, but their background in extreme sports makes them an intriguing choice, which prompted producers Sherri Crichton, James Patterson and Shane Salerno to choose them over numerous other helmers.
The aim is to pitch studios and financiers with the expectation that a deal will be made before a screenwriter is hired. There have been preliminary meetings with several top scribes, as well as big stars who might star in a movie that’s being architected in the style of Jurassic Park, which also shot in Hawaii and is based on the Crichton novel.
The novel debuted atop the lists of Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple. Not surprising, considering that between them, Crichton and Patterson have combined global book sales around 700 million. Crichton’s heavily-researched, science-grounded novels have been catnip to filmmakers and studios. From Jurassic Park to ER, Twister to Westworld, The Andromeda Strain and Disclosure, Crichton’s work has grossed over $10 billion. The new Jurassic Park film is getting underway with a script by David Koepp, and Twisters, based on the original script Crichton wrote with Anne-Marie Martin, is a summer tentpole from Universal with Glen Powell starring.
Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi’s Free Solo became the highest grossing docu film opening of all time, and they also directed Meru, the biggest grossing docu of 2015, and The Rescue, which drew five Emmy noms. Crichton spent two decades researching volcano eruptions, and the filmmakers are well suited. Chin has been a professional climber/skier on the North Face Athlete team for over 20 years and in 2006 achieved the first successful American ski descent from the summit of Mount Everest. He’s taken on many other daunting climbs including Meru-Shark’s Fin, Grand Teton, Chang Zheng Park and Fathi Brakk in Pakistan, and he chronicled his extreme climbing exploits in his book There and Back.
The book auction is being handled by Salerno’s The Story Factory and CAA.
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