Universal Picks Up Post-Apocalyptic YA Novel Arclight
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Young adult novels are all the rage in the publishing world. From Twilight, to The Hunger Games, to Necromancing the Stone, the YA market is one of the most profitable, viable designations in the book game right now. Similar logic applies to movies. Film adaptations of these books are, obviously, huge. There is a ready-made audience, not to mention that these books are prone to sequel after sequel, so there’s a built-in franchise right there.
It’s getting to point where the book doesn’t even have to be published in order to be optioned for a movie. We saw it with I Am Number Four, and now Universal is getting on that train, picking up the forthcoming YA title Arclight.
Written by Josin L. McQuein, Arclight is a post-apocalyptic joint due to hit bookshelves on April 23, 2013. Apparently the kids today love to see versions of themselves patrolling the desolate husk of a ruined civilization. What does that say about the collective mental state of our youth?
In Arclight, the last scraps of humanity have sequestered themselves away in an outpost, surrounded by a wall of light, the titular Arclight. I’m curious as to where this wall of light comes from. People are hiding from creatures called the Fade. In situations like this, a mysterious stranger usually wanders in from the wasteland, and Arclight follows this pattern. A lone teenage amnesiac stumbles into their little colony, with no recollection of who she is or how she survived in the Dark. She does, however, hold the key to their ultimate survival.
Greenwillow Books paid McQuein $500,000 for the book in 2011, Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment will produce the picture, and Mathew Sand (Ninja Assassin) is handling the script.
