Dino and Martha De Laurentiis will partner with a trio of German producers to turn the bestselling Frank Schatzing novel The Swarm into a big-budget ecological disaster film, reports Variety.
Ted Tally has been set to adapt the novel. The film is a co-production between the De Laurentiis duo and German producers Michael Souvignier, Ica Souvignier and Till Gronemeyer. Dino and Martha De Laurentiis have a first-look deal at Universal, which will be first stop for the project.
The story is about an alien presence that exists quietly on the ocean floor and is compelled to destroy humanity after its eco-system is disrupted by pollution. Scientists race to stave off an apocalypse.
Tally, who won an Oscar for scripting The Silence of the Lambs, most recently worked with the De Laurentiis duo on another Hannibal Lecter film, Red Dragon.
Martha De Laurentiis said the film will be designed on the scale of natural disaster films like Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow.
The De Laurentiises, who last produced Hannibal Rising, are reinventing Barbarella with Casino Royale scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.
