Honey Boy director Alma Har’el has found her next project: an adaptation of Walter Tevis‘ 1980 sci-fi novel Mockingbird. The project is being developed by Searchlight Pictures and will mark the third time that Tevis’ work has been adapted, with The Man Who Fell To Earth previously being adapted into a 1976 film and a recent Showtime series.
Based in an apocalyptic future, Mockingbird focuses on a drab and dismal time for Earth. Torn apart by drugs and an addiction to electronics, the population is dwindling, and creativity is suffering. There are no longer children, books, or art, and mankind is on the brink of extinction. But hope rests on the shoulders of a complicated love triangle between man, woman, and android.
The premise sounds a little like contemporary dystopia classic Children Of Men. J. Miles Dale and Robert Schwartz will produce for Searchlight, while Har’el will serve as a producer as well alongside her longtime collaborator Christopher Leggett. The director said in a statement:
“I’ll never forget the first time I read Mockingbird on the shore of the Sinai peninsula in Egypt when I was 24 years old. This book has changed my life and I’ve been pursuing it for over a decade.
I knew that Searchlight was the perfect home for it and I’m thrilled they are partnering with me to bring this to the big screen. Walter Tevis wrote a novel that refuses genre and time, choosing instead to awaken every fiber of your being.”
Har’el’s 2019 film Honey Boy with Shia LaBeouf led to her becoming the first woman to take home the DGA Award for First-Time Feature Film. Mockingbird sounds like a tremendous follow-up for the Israeli-born filmmaker. She’s also currently working on Apple TV+ limited series Lady In The Lake, which will star Natalie Portman and Lupita Nyong’o.
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