Paul Greengrass is Set To Direct a Film Adaptation of DROWNING: THE RESCUE OF FLIGHT 1421

Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, Green Zone, Captain Phillips) has signed on to write and direct a film adaptation of T.J. Newman’s novel Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421. The project is set up at Warner Bros., which won a heated bidding war for the project.

A lot of talent wanted to get their hands on this including Steven Spielberg, Nicole Kidman, and Alfonso Cuarón. On top of that, Apple and Jerry Bruckheimer, Paramount and Damien Chazelle, Legendary and Universal Television all tried to nab the rights.

Drowning tells the extremely intense story of a plane that crashes into the Pacific Ocean six minutes after takeoff. Then things get even worse. “During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside. Among them is an engineer and his 11-year-old daughter. His estranged wife — she’s also the girl’s mother — is part of the elite rescue team that races to save the passengers before their air runs out.”

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group agreed to pay $1.5 million for the rights and an additional $1.5 million on the first day of production. The studio also brought the author of the book on as an executive producer.  Newman actually worked as a flight attendant while she wrote her debut novel Falling, which centers on a commercial flight from Los Angeles to New York and takes a dramatic turn when the pilot finds out his family is being held hostage by terrorists. For his family to live, everyone on the plane must die.

This seems like a great project for Greengrass as it’s right in his wheelhouse of the kind of films that he makes. There’s no casting yet, but you can bet the studio is going to go after some big names for this one.