Paramount Pictures and Indian Paintbrush have set Mark Heyman on adapting the Franck Thilliez novel, Syndrome E. Deadline has the news, saying the Black Swan screenwriter will adapt the French novel, officially described as follows:
Already a runaway bestseller in France, Syndrome E tells the story of beleaguered detective Lucie Hennebelle, whose old friend has developed a case of spontaneous blindness after watching an extremely rareand violentfilm from the 1950s. Embedded in the film are subliminal images so unspeakably heinous that Lucie realizes she must get to the bottom of itespecially when nearly everyone who comes into contact with the film starts turning up dead.
Enlisting the help of Inspector Franck Sharkoa brooding, broken analyst for the Paris police who is exploring the films connection to five murdered men left in the woods, Lucie begins to strip away the layers of what is perhaps the most disturbing and powerful film ever made. Soon Sharko and Lucie find themselves mired in a darkness that spreads across politics, religion, science, and art while stretching from France to Canada, Egypt to Rwanda, and beyond. And just who is responsible for this darkness will blow readers minds, as Syndrome E forces them to consider: what if the earliest and most brilliant advances and discoveries of neuroscience were not used for goodbut for evil.
Garrett Basch, Steven Rales, Mark Roybal and Steve Zaillian are attached to produce.
