The Weinstein Co. is setting up an adaptation of Lois Lowry’s The Giver as a starring vehicle for Jeff Bridges, with Salt director Phillip Noyce in early talks to direct.
For anyone not familiar with the book’s long road to production, Jeff Bridges first acquired rights for the Newbery Medal-winning YA novel nearly two decades ago, with the intention of producing the film as a vehicle for his father, Lloyd Bridges. Obviously that didn’t pan out, as it has since gone through four separate screenplays, most recently in 2006 by Vadim Perelman (House of Sand and Fog), when 20th Century Fox was interested in the project.
It now seems that The Weinstein Co. is interested in The Giver for Jeff Bridges to both star in and produce, along with Walden Media. As Variety reports, “unlike action-heavy YA properties The Hunger Games and Harry Potter, The Giver is a largely introspective fantasy tale set in a colorless dystopian society in which all memory of human history has been erased, emotion does not exist and citizens’ professions are chosen for them. When a 12-year-old boy is assigned to serve as the Receiver of Memories (i.e. the next Giver) he discovers that all is not as it seems.”
Having read the book, we can confirm this to be the case, which is perhaps why it has taken so long to get off the ground. Of course, having a talented and legendary actor like Bridges guiding the film will certainly help, although the story doesn’t lend itself as easily to the medium of film.
In terms of Noyce’s involvement, Variety characterizes it as “very early, as there are a lot of moving parts to this.” There is no start date yet, although a director is certainly a step in the right direction, just take this one with a grain of salt (pun intended?), as having a director attached in the past hasn’t been able to get the project off the ground. We’ll be sure to keep you apprised on the project as it moves forward.