Ron Howard set to direct film adaptation of SEVENEVES

A film adaptation of the popular Neal Stephenson novel, Seveneves is being planned and it’s so far generating quote a lot of interest from top talent in the industry. According to Collider, they have already signed up Ron Howard to direct the film, setting his Apollo 13 screenwriter William Broyles Jr. to write the script and have got Brian Grazer producing the movie. That is quite a formidable combination of talent to get the film development underway and makes this a movie to certainly keep an eye out for.

Howard had initially had his eye on the Dark Tower film currently being filmed in Cape Town, but after years of debate on this, he stepped back to a producer only role for this film which has opened him up to direct other films, after having recently directed his third Dan Brown movie – Inferno, which saw him team up with regular collaborator Tom Hanks and is due out later this year.

The director has had trouble recently connecting at the box office with his past few films, like the romantic drama The Dilemma, Rush and In the Heart of the Sea, though it has to be said that Rush was an incredible gem of a film which was unfortunate to not get more attention in the box office. However, as you can gather from these past 3 movies, he is no stranger to genre swapping and can generally turn a film from any genre into a great movie.

As for the film Seveneves, it is based on the aforementioned novel, which hit shelves last year and begins with humanity in dire straights as a catastrophic event renders Earth uninhabitable. The world’s nations subsequently need to band together and devise a plan to ensure humanity’s survival, which involves sending pioneers into the far reaches of outer space. A plot that is not to dissimilar to Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, though this time on a much more global scale and this story deals with much more. Following the attempts to pioneer other planets, the book then  jumps 5,000 years into the future, with the progeny of these pioneers now spanning seven distinct races and three billion strong. They set out on an ambitious journey of their own—a return to Earth.

This story is huge and the adaptation is certainly a massive undertaking to try and put this level of detail and story into a film version successfully. If the production team can focus on the right elements in telling the story without overwhelming the audience, I see nothing but potential blockbuster written all over this one. As things are still early in production, we are unlikely to have any potential stars or release dates for the film for the foreseeable future, but be sure we will keep an eye out for them, especially if it continues to attract more top talent to it.

For those, like me, who haven’t read the novel yet (and after reading the synopsis, I certainly plan to) you can catch the official synopsis below:

Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years.

What would happen if the world were ending?

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . .

Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.

Last Updated: June 13, 2016