Scribe tapped for new adaptation of classic novel.
Deadline has word that Noah Oppenheim (‘The Secret Life of Houdini’) has been hired by Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment to pen a new adaptation of George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four.’
Published in 1949, the book is set in a totalitarian future society called Oceania and follows Winston Smith, a man whose job it is to rewrite newspapers so that the historical record is congruent with the current ideology. When Smith is drawn into a forbidden love affair, he finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the all-seeing entity known as “Big Brother.”
The book was previously adapted by Michael Radford back in 1984 with John Hurt in the lead and Richard Burton, and Suzanna Hamilton co-starring. Grazer will produce the new adaptation along his Imagine Entertainment partners Julie Yorn and Rick Yorn.