Are you ready for a movie about the Donner Party titled The Hunger, which will feature a Walking Dead-style twist? Well, you’re getting it anyway.
If you can’t remember, or have chosen to forget on purpose, the Donner Party was a group of pioneers who set out for California by wagon in the mid 1850s. A series of unfortunate events meant they were delayed and forced to spend a winter in the snowy Sierra Nevada. In order to survive, some members of the party reverted to cannibalism.
According to Deadline, 20th Century Fox has acquired the rights to The Hunger, a novel about the cannibalistic group.
The rub? The novel isn’t even a novel yet.
Instead, it’s just a proposal for the novel, the adaptation of which will then be scripted and directed by Luke Scott. The book will be written by Alma Katsu, who is a former CIA analyst and author of The Taker, a story about an immortal being whose eternal love for one man means she must endure a terrible fate.
The Hunger will be published in 2018 thanks to a six-figure deal, and Ridley Scott’s Scott Free will produce the film.
This isn’t the first movie to be made about the Donner Party, but the idea that it could have a Walking Dead-style twist means it might not look like anything that came before it.
According to my very (very) brief research, cannibalism can have a physical effect on the person devouring human flesh, so it stands to reason we could essentially see the equivalent of zombies in this film.