Warner Bros. has teamed up with David Siegel and Scott McGehee to create a story based off the novel Lord of the Flies, reports Deadline, but with a twist. The characters will be female, not male as they were in the book. McGehee and Siegel will stick closely to the original story, which depicts stranded grade school children on an island and how they create social ranks in some really shocking ways.
It has already been done twice before with male characters. The first time was in 1963, which is the most well-known on screen version. Peter Brook was responsible for that film. Harry Hook directed a 1990 version of the idea for Castle Rock, and that is the reason Warner Bros. has some rights to the story.
McGehee and Siegel are not a new pair. They previously teamed for What Maisie Knew in 2012. Before that, there was Bee Season and The Deep End. They have a penchant for creating and directing stories in dramatic ways that really showcase how children might really see things.
The pair are big fans of Brook’s version of the story, they told Deadline, but would like to see a more modern take on it. This has been on the table for a while, but what was really holding up the project was that they needed to make sure they legally could create such a film, so the rights had to be investigated further. They just completed sorting that out and closing the deal, so writing on the story can begin immediately.
“We want to do a very faithful but contemporized adaptation of the book, but our idea was to do it with all girls rather than boys,” Siegel said to Deadline. “It is a timeless story that is especially relevant today, with the interpersonal conflicts and bullying, and the idea of children forming a society and replicating the behavior they saw in grownups before they were marooned.”
McGehee told Deadline the subject matter :
“is aggressively suspenseful, and taking the opportunity to tell it in a way it hasn’t been told before, with girls rather than boys, is that is shifts things in a way that might help people see the story anew. It breaks away from some of the conventions, the ways we think of boys and aggression. People still talk about the movie and the book from the standpoint of pure storytelling,” he stated. “It is a great adventure story, real entertainment, but it has a lot of meaning embedded in it as well. We’ve gotten to think about this awhile as the rights were worked out, and we’re super eager to put pen to paper.”
ICM Partners and Nelson Davis rep McGehee and Siegel.