Via a press release we learn that Hammer Films has acquired the rights to the novel BONESHAKER by Cherie Priest for adaptation to the big screen. Project will be co-produced by Hammer and Cross Creek Pictures and co-financed by Exclusive and Cross Creek Pictures.
An example of “steampunk” science-fiction, which incorporates futuristic innovations into a Victorian setting,
Priest’s novel is set in an alternate version of 1880s Seattle, where the city has been walled in and a toxic gas has turned many of its remaining residents into “Rotters,” more commonly known as zombies. A young widow hunts for her teen son in the Seattle underworld, while dealing with airship pirates, a criminal overlord and heavily armed refugees.
John Hilary Shepherd, a 2010 WGA Award nominee for his work on the first season of the Showtime series, “Nurse Jackie,” is writing the screenplay. Tobin Armbrust, Head of Production is overseeing the project’s development for Hammer Films.
“Boneshaker” was nominated for a 2010 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and won the 2010 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. The novel, published in 2009 by Tor Books, is the first in a series set in the same Civil War-period, alternate-world Priest has dubbed “The Clockwork Century.” The series’ second novel “Dreadnought” was published in 2010 and the third novel titled “Ganymede” was recently released online and in bookstores on September 27th.
Hilary Swank, from Hammer Films’ THE RESIDENT