James Wan’s Atomic Monster is producing a big screen adaptation of Nick Cutter’s YA horror novel The Troop. Cutter is a horror pen name by Craig Davidson, who also writes under the name Patrick Lestewka for the genre. The Troop has been celebrated by horror fans ever since it was released in 2014 and a movie was inevitable. E.L. Katz has been set to direct the project with Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald adapting Cutter’s book for the big screen.
The Troop centers on a Boy Scout troop in the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip, which is a tradition. However, things get crazy really quick when an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite. He is described as “shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry.” The boys are then exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror: the human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. The book tells the story of a “harrowing struggle for survival with no escape from the elements, the infected… or one another.”
Nick Cutter’s The Troop has been compared to Lord of the Flies and 28 Days Later, which sounds pretty unsettling. In other words, it sounds right up James Wan’s alley and why he and Atomic Monster are partnering with JS Entertainment and Starlight Media to bring the story to the big screen. While a director and screenwriters have been chosen, a production start date, cast, and release date have not. With that being said, one can imagine Atomic Monster will want to get moving on this one pretty quickly since fans of the original novel have been waiting so long.
James Wan and Atomic Monster have been pretty busy over the years and they’re all set to get even more work done in the future. Wan is preparing to direct a top secret R-rated horror movie before getting behind the camera for Aquaman 2. Atomic Monster has The Conjuring 3, The Trench, Mortal Kombat, and a lot more on the slate. The untitled horror movie Wan is working on will go back to his roots and he says he’ll be using a lot of practical effects. There is no word on what The Troop‘s approach to special effects will be at this time.
Craig Davidson likes to get fully immersed when he begins work on a new novel. When he was writing 2007’s The Fighter, he went on a 16-week steroid cycle and then promoted the book with two officially sanctioned boxing matches in Canada and the United States. He uses his Patrick Lestewka and Nick Cutter pen names for his horror stories and tends to keep them a bit on the mysterious side. His books in the genre have been given a lot of praise over the years. Deadline was the first to announce the Atomic Monster and The Troop news.
