Paramount Taps Francis Lawrence to Direct 'Red Rising' — SkimNews
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- Paramount acquired the film rights to Pierce Brown's "Red Rising" book series with Francis Lawrence set to direct an adaptation of the 2014 first novel.
- Justin Rhodes will write the screenplay, with Lawrence and Cameron MacConomy producing for About.Blank alongside Francesco Goedhuis, while Brown serves as executive producer.
- The "Red Rising" saga spans six published novels set across colonized planets organized by a color-coded caste system, following miner Darrow's brutal transformation into a Gold rebel; a seventh and final book, "Red God," is still on the way.
- Francis Lawrence has directed every "Hunger Games" film — including next month's prequel "Sunrise on the Reaping" and 2023's "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" — plus last year's Stephen King adaptation "The Long Walk."
Why it matters: With six novels in print and a seventh still forthcoming, "Red Rising" gives Paramount a multi-film franchise blueprint at a time when Lawrence has cemented himself as the go-to director for dystopian YA adaptations. His Hunger Games pedigree lends immediate genre credibility, though the still-unwritten finale means the cinematic roadmap can't fully be charted yet.
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