After the recent flood of feature film directors heading to television, it's nice to see that it still works the other way round. Jack Bender, who directed pretty much every important episode of ABC'sLost, save the pilot, is developing Devolution for Legendary Pictures. According to THR, the thriller, which has a plot that's being kept completely under wraps, will be directed by Bender who is now free after parting ways with Paramount's reboot of the Jack Ryan franchise with Chris Pine.
Instead of espionage, it seems the the director will instead turn to a different genre exercise with Devolution, which is based on an original idea from World War Z author Max Brooks. Bender should have no problems handling Brook's material with series like Lost, Alphas and Alias under his belt. While Brooks came up with the story, the screenplay is being written by David Leslie Johnson whose credits include a few episodes of AMC's The Walking Dead as well as the horror flick Orphan. I'm starting to see a pattern.
A lot of horror credits for the creative team behind Devolution could be a hint at what they have in store for us with the secretive project. This is the second film that Max Brooks has developed with Legendary Pictures, the other being The Great Wall (and luckily for them not the more-than-troubled adaptation of his most famous work). As for Jack Bender, he's also got the pilot for Syfy's potential series Rewind on his slate. We'll keep you updated as Devolution evolves.
