‘Maze Runner’ Director Wes Ball To Helm ‘The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August’ For Amblin
By Hoai-Tran Bui/April 29, 2020 3:30 pm EST
Deadline reports that Wes Ball is set to direct The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, a sci-fi story about a man “who is repeatedly born into the same life, remembers all his past experiences, and seeks to save the world by outmaneuvering a similarly gifted rival who’s willing to make any sacrifice to attain a godlike knowledge.”
The film is based on the sci-fi novel by Claire North, which won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Melissa Iqbal (Humans, The Nevers) is adapting the novel for the big screen.
Ball has a lot of potential as a sci-fi blockbuster director (the Maze Runner movies are solid dystopian flicks) and the Groundhog Day-esque plot of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August sounds intriguing. Amblin’s involvement is also promising — the company recently earned awards and box office success with Sam Mendes’ Oscar-nominated 1917.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is being produced by Oscar nominees Pete Czernin and Graham Broadbent (Emma, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) of Blueprint Pictures, which originally optioned and developed the project, and Joe Hartwick Jr (Jumper, The Maze Runner) of Oddball Entertainment.
