Now available in stores around the country (at least the ones that are open), the latest book from author Max Brooks has already been optioned for a live-action adaptation. The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Brooks’ new novel “Devolution” has been picked up by Legendary Entertainment for development as a feature iflm. The full title of the novel, which illuminates its plot, is “Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre.” Ironically the concept by Brooks had previously been developed in-house by Legendary but fell out of active development and was reworked into a novel by Brooks.
Published by Penguin Random House, the book’s official description reads: “As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now. The journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing—and too earth-shattering in its implications—to be forgotten. In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it. Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and, inevitably, of savagery and death.”
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“Yet it is also far more than that.”
“Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us—and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.”
The audiobook for”Devolution” has a stacked roster of actors reading the text including Judy Greer, Nathan Fillion, plus Jeff Daniels, and Max Brooks himself.
Brooks’ work is a fan favorite and has previously been brought to life on the big screen, despite outcry from fans that the feature film didn’t do his words justice. The authors previous works include “The Zombie Survival Guide” and the acclaimed “World War Z,” adapted for the big screen in a film starring Brad Pitt. Though fans were outraged by the changes and differences between Brooks novel and the movie itself, the author himself couldn’t bring himself to dislike it because it was so different from his work.
“I was expecting to hate it, and I wanted to hate it because it was so different from my book, and yet the fact that it was so different from my book made it easier to watch because I didn’t watch my characters and my story get mangled,” Brooks told USA Today in 2013. “So I was just watching somebody else’s zombie movie, which was fun and intense.”
Hopefully for Brooks and his readers, he’s more involved in the adaptation of his new book.
(Cover photo by Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic)
