Universal Pictures has just signed 10 Cloverfield Lane writers Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken for the adaptation of National Book Award–winning author Neal Shusterman’s Scythe, according to Deadline. The book is set in a dystopian future where there is no disease. Therefore people called Scythes kill to control the population. Dylan Clark will produce for Universal alongside Trevor Engelson. Shusterman will be executive producer.
Here is the info on Scythe from Amazon:
“Two teens must learn the “art of killing” in this Printz Honor–winning book, the first in a chilling new series from Neal Shusterman, author of the New York Times bestselling Unwind dystology.
“A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.
“Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.”
Shusterman was invited by Orson Scott Card to write novels to parallel Ender’s Game, though it didn’t happen because of scheduling. He’s also written for TV including the Disney Channel movie Pixel Perfect and episodes of Goosebumps and Animorphs. He’s also developing his National Book Award winner Challenger Deep for Fox and Chernin. He’s written YA novels under the name Easton Royce for The X-Files. In addition to his National Book Award, Schusterman has won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and the California Young Reader Medal for The Schwa Was Here.
