Trilogy author Patrick Ness is also in talks to write the new script pages.
Chaos Walking, Doug Liman’s big-budget adaptation of the best-selling YA novel of the same name by Patrick Ness, is the latest big-budget movie to undergo significant reshoots, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
And, because of complicated scheduling issues with stars Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, the reshoots could very likely force the Lionsgate movie to push back its release date, currently slated for March 1, 2019.
Lionsgate is spending between $90 million and $100 million on the movie, an ambitious sci-fi thriller that it hopes to launch a franchise that can stand out amid superhero movies, remakes and sequel tentpoles.
The reshoots, or “additional photography,” are expected to last two or three weeks but will not take place until the end of this year or early next — December or even January, sources tell THR. That marks an unusual delay given that the movie finished shooting principal photography last November, but insiders point out that the delay is because the movie’s two stars are so in demand.
Holland is due to shoot the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming while Ridley will be at work on Star Wars: Episode IX, both of which take up the summer months. Regardless, it would be a tight turnaround to make the current release date and insiders are planning, at this stage, on the opening date to shift. Lionsgate had no comment.
The film’s story is set a colony planet where almost all women have been killed by a virus, and all living creatures hear one another’s thoughts in a stream of images, words and sounds called Noise. The cacophony drives many mad until a young man (Holland) makes a silent discovery: There is a girl (Ridley) who may be the key to unlocking the New World’s many-layered secrets.
Ness, the author of the trilogy who also wrote A Monster Calls as well as its film adaptation, is in negotiations to write the new script pages for the planned reshoot. He’ll be joining a roster of screenwriters that includes Charlie Kaufman, Lindsey Beers, John Lee Hancock and Gary Spinelli, all of whom previously worked on the complicated and unique story.
Reshoots are becoming par for the course for big-budget movies. Last week, THR reported that X-Men: Dark Phoenix and New Mutants will also undergo additional photography. In fact, some major movies, like those made by Marvel, budget for extra shooting days that can be completed well after principal photography, since such movies have become more complex and elaborate.
Liman is also no stranger to reshoots himself, since a number of his films, such as The Bourne Identity to Edge of Tomorrow, have undergone rework to various degrees, finally coming together in post-production.
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