E-books have made self-publishing easier than ever, and much like the advent of digital filmmaking, this means there's plenty more products being churned out. Typically a sure in quantity isn't matched by in quality, but some stellar stories are already rising to the surface of this self-publishing wave, like Hugh Howey's post-apocalyptic novelette collection Wool.
The omnibus edition of Wool has become a sleeper hit, rising to the 29th best-selling Kindle e-book and the 30th best-selling fiction book on Amazon this year. Already it's been translated into 17 languages. It grabbed the attention of Ridley Scott and the late Tony Scott earlier this year. Then Scott Free Productions urged 20th Century Fox to go in with them to snag the series' movie rights. Cut to today, where Vulture has uncovered Fox is stepping up development on the will-be adaptation by entering into talks with filmmaker J. Blakeson to helm. There's no mention of who might pen the screenplay for this pic, but considering it's so early in the project's development and Blakeson wrote and directed the 2009 UK thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed, it seems he could be a possibility for Wool's scribe.
Set in a sprawling subterranean society called Silos, Wool takes place in a dystopian future where the remnants of a post-apocalyptic event struggle to survive. A strict set of rules aims to keep this claustrophobic community in line, but when rumors surface about what really drove them under ground, the shady authority is called into question. It sounds like a good base for a sci-fi movie—or even a possible franchise. The only bad news right now is we have no idea when Wool would run into production.
