Plans are underway for a film that will tell the true story of North America’s infamous Donner Party expedition with a “Walking Dead-style twist.” Deadline has the news, reporting that 20th Century Fox has picked up the big-screen rights to the upcoming novel The Hunger by former CIA and Department of Defense intelligence analyst Alma Katsu. According to Publisher’s Weekly, the book was first pitched to literary incubator Paper Lantern as “a riff on the historical tale of the Donner Party.”
The real-life Donner party was led by George Donner and James F. Reed (the latter is pictured above with his wife, Margret). In 1846, 87 men and women set out for California. Slightly more than half of them would arrive the following year after facing harrowing conditions that forced members of the party to eat their own dead.
The Hunger already has Luke Scott, the son of filmmaker Ridley Scott, attached to adapt and direct the adaptation. Scott is making his feature film directorial debut with next month’s science fiction thriller Morgan. Starring Kate Mara, Anya Taylor-Joy, Toby Jones, Rose Leslie, Boyd Holbrook, Michelle Yeoh, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Paul Giamatti, Morgan follows Mara as a corporate troubleshooter sent to a remote, top-secret location, where she is to investigate and evaluate a terrifying accident. She learns the event was triggered by a seemingly innocent “human,” who presents a mystery of both infinite promise and incalculable danger. Look for it to hit theaters on September 2.
Scott Free will produce The Hunger with Paper Lantern’s Lauren Oliver and Lexa Hillyer serving as executive producers.
