LORD OF THE FLIES is Getting a New Film Adaptation... Only This Time it Will Be With Girls
Warner Bros. is developing a new feature film adaptation of the classic 1954 William Golding novel Lord of the Flies. Only this time there's a big change to the story... it will revolve around a group of young school girls instead of boys.
This was only of my favorite books that I read when I was growing up. It's one of those stories that I just connected with. Some of those boys in the story were freakin' vicious little assholes.
The movie will be written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel (Bee Season) and they will reportedly stay true to the story that the novel tells only all the children will be girls. The fact young girls are going to go through this crazy ordeal actually kind of makes it even more vicious.
If you’re not familiar with Lord of the Flies, here's the description of the novel:
At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued.
McGehee had this to say in a statement to Deadline:
"We want to do a very faithful but contemporized adaptation of the book, but our idea was to do it with all girls rather than boys. It is a timeless story that is especially relevant today, with the interpersonal conflicts and bullying, and the idea of children forming a society and replicating the behavior they saw in grownups before they were marooned."
McGehee went to explain that the story and change saying:
"It's aggressively suspenseful, and taking the opportunity to tell it in a way it hasn’t been told before, with girls rather than boys, is that it shifts things in a way that might help people see the story anew. It breaks away from some of the conventions, the ways we think of boys and aggression. People still talk about the movie and the book from the standpoint of pure storytelling. It is a great adventure story, real entertainment, but it has a lot of meaning embedded in it as well. We’ve gotten to think about this awhile as the rights were worked out, and we’re super eager to put pen to paper.”
This will be the third film adaptation of the novel. The first movie was made in 1963 by director Peter Brook and the second movie was made in 1990 by director Harry Hook.
What do you think about the filmmakers changing the main group of young characters in the story from boys to girls?