Coming out on top of a competitive situation, Paramount has picked up 2084, an original spec script from Mattson Tomlin, the co-writer of The Batman.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura, known for producing the Transformers and G.I. Joe movies for the studio, will produce.
Details are scarce, but the project is described as being a spiritual sister to 1984, the novel by George Orwell that depicted a totalitarian state filled with propaganda and surveillance run by a leader known as Big Brother. A forbidden love was an aspect of the story.
The project has also been described as having tones similar to Christopher Nolan’s Inception and the Keanu Reeves classic, The Matrix.
Di Bonaventura knows his way around original sci-fi such as the latter, as he ushered The Matrix into production when he was head of film at Warner Bros. He is now in postproduction on Infinite, an original time-bending actioner starring Mark Wahlberg.
2084 generated interest from filmmakers and talent who were eager to get involved before its pickup, a testament to Tomlin’s writing prowess. The scribe got on the map when he worked with filmmaker Matt Reeves to co-write The Batman, which was in the middle of production and had to shut down due to the coronavirus crisis. (Production on the Robert Pattinson-starrer is expected to resume as soon as restrictions ease.)
Tomlin has now set up or nabbed numerous gigs around town, among them an adaptation of the comic Fear Agent for Amazon and an adaptation of the video game Mega Man.
He is repped by Grandview and Goodman Genow.
