Rick Famuyiwa, best known for directing the celebrated 2015 coming-of-age movie Dope, has signed on to write and direct Black Hole, New Regency and Plan B’s adaptation of the graphic novel by Charles Burns.
Plan B and New Regency’s Arnon Milchan are set to produce the film. New Regency will finance the project.
The move kick-starts a project that has been in development on and off since 2005, when it was to have been adapted by horror director Alexandre Aja. Neil Gaiman and Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avery developed it for a time, and the project was set up for years at Paramount with David Fincher attached to direct.
Set in the Pacific Northwest during the 1970s, Black Hole follows a group of high schoolers who contract a mysterious, apparently sexually transmitted disease known as “the Bug.” As the syndrome causes physical mutations, turning the teens into something else, the community is left to deal with the fallout.
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Burns wrote and illustrated 12 issues of Hole over a 10-year period, with the story being collected into graphic novel form in 2005. It gained a cult following while also receiving a Harvey Award, an Ignatz Award and an Eisner Award.
Black Hole is the latest project that partners New Regency and Plan B, which have previously teamed on the Oscar-winning and thought-provoking films 12 Years a Slave and The Big Short. They next have the sci-fi pic Ad Astra, starring Plan B principal Brad Pitt and directed by James Gray, and the two companies are developing Wrong Answer, a project to be helmed by Black Panther’s Ryan Coogler, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and starring Michael B. Jordan.
In addition to writing and directing Dope, Famuyiwa helmed the pilot for the Showtime drama The Chi, which was just renewed for a second season. He also directed the Emmy-nominated HBO film Confirmation starring Kerry Washington.
Famuyiwa is repped by WME, Oasis Media Group and Del, Shaw.
