Black Forest acquires Hunger Games like novel Quarantine: The Loners

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

From STARTERS to THE LONERS…THE HUNGER GAMES aftershock continues to strike!

Moments after telling you about a Hollywood auction for Lissa Prices’ dystopic sci-fi novel STARTERS, Black Forest Film Group has acquired rights to Lex Thomas’ QUARANTINE: THE LONERS…also a dystopic sci-fi novel drawing comparisons to, you guessed it, THE HUNGER GAMES. And like the biggest earner of 2012, THE LONERS – hitting shelves this July – is just the first of a trilogy of books.

Per Variety:

Described as a cross between “The Warriors” and “Lord of the Flies,” the action-thriller concerns the outbreak of a virus that is deadly to anyone after puberty. A typical American high school becomes a battleground after the military quarantines more than a thousand teens, who subsequently form violent gangs based on previously established social cliques. Instead of battling for popularity, the students must fight for survival. Protags are two brothers whose relationship is tested when a young girl threatens to come between them.

Lex Thomas is actually the penname of the two authors, Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies. The two, like Collins for HG and Price for STARTERS, will adapt the screenplay from their own novel.

Man, if this is how the news is going to be from now on…studios almost desperately searching for the next HUNGER GAMES…or more specifically, the next $150 million opener, I’m only going to become more and more depressed about the film biz. Chasing dollars, as long as that’s the motive behind moviemaking, the artistic side of the proceedings will be forever jeopardized. Surely I’m not the only one who cares about such a thing.

QUARANTINE star Jennifer Carpenter