Louise Candlish‘s bestselling novel The Other Passenger is set to be adapted for the silver screen, with actor-turned-director Joseph Cross snapping up the film rights and planning to direct the adaptation.
Candlish’s book has already become a hit in the UK, and will be published in the U.S. in July 2021. It revolves around a man named Jamie who’s been rocked by a traumatic incident on a commuter train, so now travels to work by river bus with his younger neighbour, Kit.
But when Kit doesn’t show up one morning and Jamie is instead met at his stop by the police, things take a turn for the worse. Kit’s wife Melia has reported him missing due to an argument the two neighbours had the day before, and Jamie is now the prime suspect in a possible murder.
Cross said in a statement: “It is an honour to be entrusted with Louise’s brilliant, dark, twisty, suspenseful and utterly disturbing new novel. Her characters are meticulously crafted so as to be entirely relatable, which makes the novel’s cataclysmic finale all the more affecting. I am very much looking forward to our collaboration”.
Candlish, who has already written 14 novels, added: “I’m overjoyed that Joseph is developing The Other Passenger for the screen. I know he will do a spectacular job. The moment we began discussing the project, it was clear we share a passion for the classic noir aspects of the plot, as well as a fascination with the brutal generational conflict at the heart of the story”.
Cross has appeared in films such as Milk and Lincoln, and has actually timed this announcement well, as he’s got a role in David Fincher‘s Mank, which is due out on Netflix this Friday. He previously made his directorial debut with last year’s coming-of-age drama, Summer Night.
The Other Passenger sounds like it has the bones to be something thrilling. It’s almost a surprise this isn’t being adapted into a prestige mini-series, which is what these thrillers usually become nowadays. Hopefully, as Candlish implied, this can be a sort of noir-ish throwback to classic silver screen thrillers of the past.
#Peace.Love.TheOtherPassenger
