New 'Lord Of The Flies' Adaptation From Luca Guadagnino Brings In 'A Monster Calls' Writer

William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies has seen a handful of adaptations over the years, with the most recent being back in 1990. The classic story has influenced countless other stories about groups of misfits, and now it will be adapted for a new generation at Warner Bros. Pictures with a best-selling young adult author tackling the screenplay this time.

The Hollywood Reporter has news that Chaos Walking and A Monster Calls author Patrick Ness will be scripting a new Lord of the Flies movie for Warner Bros. Already attached to direct the adaptation is Call Me By Your Name filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, who will also be producing the film along his producing partner Marco Morabito. Also on board as producers will be writers Lindsey Beer, Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Nicole Perlman by way of their Known Universe production banner.

If you've never encountered Lord of the Flies in high school or your adult life, here's an official synopsis from Amazon:

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued.

Knowing how Luca Guadagnino handled teenage angst and love in Call Me By Your Name, not to mention the hardships of loss that Patrick Ness wrote into both the screenplay and book for A Monster Calls (the latter of which won him one of his two Carnegie Medals), this could prove to be the definitive adaptation of Lord of the Flies. All of Ness' work in young adult literature has focused on kids and teens tackling larger than life scenarios that put them in emotional duress or immense danger, bringing trauma to their doorstep.

It's not clear when this new adaptation of Lord of the Flies might get off the ground, especially since Guadagnino was looking to get his Call Me By Your Name sequel off the ground just before the coronavirus pandemic spread around the globe. Since that got delayed, and there's no solid date for productions to get back to work, we'll have to wait and see how this plays out.