Ben Wheatley, the director of Kill List, Sightseers and A Field in England, has signed on to direct the film adaptation of JG Ballard’s social horror novel High Rise.
Screen Daily reports that Wheatley will direct from a script by his partner Amy Jump and that shooting will start in 2014. A movie version of the book has been mooted for years, with Vincenzo Natali (Splice, Cube) attached to direct from a script by Richard Stanley (Hardware). However, the rights to the property lapsed and producer Jeremy Thomas has jumped on the chance to get his passion project made. The grim, bleakly funny novel should be a perfect fit for Wheatley and Jump and we can’t wait to see what they do with it.
“Set in a luxury high-rise building, the book follows a group of affluent tenants hell-bent on an orgy of destruction. Cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on ‘enemy’ floors and the once-luxurious amenities become an arena for technological mayhem. Human society slips into violent reverse as the inhabitants of the ultra-modern high-rise, driven by primal urges, recreate a world ruled by the laws of the jungle.”
You can buy High Rise in paperback for £5.73 at Amazon.co.uk.
