Those waiting for Edgar Wright to return to the comedies of his early career may be waiting a long time. While we await anxiously his psychological thriller Last Night in Soho, Wright has now signed on for something even darker, an adaptation of Adrian McKinty’s bestselling novel The Chain, penned by X-Men: First Class writer Jane Goldman.
The Chain is a book that Paramount had been seeking the film rights to, only to have it fall into the hands of Universal with Wright attached. The story centers on a mother who goes to desperate lengths to rescue her kidnapped daughter.
SYNOPSIS: The Chain tells the story of Rachel, who learns that her 11-year-old daughter has been kidnapped. The only way to get her back is to kidnap another child. Her daughter will be released only when that next victim’s parents kidnap another child. If Rachel doesn’t kidnap another child, or if that child’s parents don’t kidnap a child, her daughter will be murdered. She is now part of The Chain, a terrifying and meticulous chain letter-like kidnapping scheme that turns parents from victims into criminals. The book tells Rachel’s harrowing story as victim, survivor, abductor and criminal. What the masterminds behind The Chain know is that parents will do anything for their children. But what they don’t know is that in Rachel they have finally met their match, as she is smart and tough enough to have survived a bout with cancer and is determined to break The Chain while getting her daughter back.
This is definitely new territory for Wright, not only in premise but in ceding the writing duties completely to another. We’ll see how long that lasts or if Goldman, whose credits also include both Kingsman movies, Kick-Ass, and The Woman in Black, ends up as co-writer with Wright. [Deadline]
