1 week ago
EXCLUSIVE: 20th Century Studios is eyeing a Choose Your Own Adventure movie, based connected nan long-running interactive book series, pinch Radio Silence (Ready aliases Not franchise) connected committee to nonstop and produce.
Radio Silence’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett will activity from a book by Tom Bissell, a WGA Award victor pinch credits including Andor and The Disaster Artist. No specifications yet arsenic to nan crippled of nan characteristic take.
One of nan awesome literate phenomena of nan precocious 20th century, Choose Your Own Adventure comprises a bid of “gamebooks,” nonlinear, replayable, and user-directed stories, successful which readers are nan leader and determine really nan communicative ends.
The bid officially launched astatine Bantam Books successful 1979 with The Cave of Time, a book by Edward Packard, who had ideated a caller branching-story conception while telling bedtime stories to his daughters. Between 1997 and 1999, much than 184 of these gamebooks were published from 30 different authors, pinch stories group everyplace from nan water to outer abstraction and myriad imagination worlds. R. A. Montgomery was instrumental successful mounting nan bid up astatine Bantam astatine a clip erstwhile nan institution was launching a section focused connected younger readers and became 1 of its superior authors. In 2003, he and writer woman Shannon Gilligan took complete arsenic nan series’ patient via Chooseco, which says nan bid sold complete 250 cardinal copies worldwide successful its original run, pinch translations successful 38 languages, and is nan 4th bestselling of each clip successful nan arena of children’s books.
Choose Your Own Adventure has had an enduring taste impact, arsenic a bid astatine nan vanguard of interactive storytelling, pinch Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch being 1 of nan astir notable caller projects implementing this basal model to break into nan mainstream.
Radio Silence’s movie will beryllium nan first awesome return connected nan books for nan screen. Responsible for nan cult Searchlight scary film Ready aliases Not, starring Samara Weaving, they’e coming disconnected nan merchandise of its sequel and are adjacent group to tackle an anticipated caller installment in The Mummy franchise for Universal, pinch stars Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz returning. Radio Silence besides precocious helmed some nan reboot of Scream and Scream VI for Paramount and Spyglass, which together delivered $304 cardinal worldwide, arsenic good arsenic nan Uni scary flick Abigail. They are represented by CAA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.
Bissell is simply a prolific, aggregate award-winning writer moving crossed TV, film, books, journalism, and video games, whose anterior acquisition pinch interactive storytelling made him a earthy fresh for this assignment. Bissell has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories three times and is nan writer of 11 books, including the New York Times bestseller The Disaster Artist, chronicling nan creation of The Room, a movie that has been referred to arsenic “the Citizen Kane of bad movies.”
On nan screenwriting front, Bissell co-created nan Apple TV+ series The Mosquito Coast, which ran for 2 seasons, and astir precocious received a WGA Award information for his activity connected nan 2nd play of Andor, for which he wrote nan last 3 episodes. Bissell’s video crippled activity includes nan 4th and 5th installments of Gears of War, arsenic good as Uncharted 4, for which he won a WGA Award. He is represented by CAA, Entertainment 360, and Yorn Levine.
