Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters follow-up, The Imitation Game, won’t make its big debut until the Toronto International Film Festival in September, but the film is picking up Oscar buzz, so it should come as no surprise that Tyldum has already locked another project, the big screen adaptation of Fredrik T. Olsson’s Chain of Events.  The book doesn’t even arrive until November 4, 2014, but Warner Bros. snatched up the rights last August and is already making moves to get the movie version going.

The book is being described as “World War Z meets The Da Vinci Code,” and covers what happens when a former cryptologist is kidnapped and assigned to solve a coded message while his ex-wife tries to track him down.  Hit the jump for more.

As reported by Variety, Mark L. Smith is busy penning the script, which should be an interesting change of pace for him considering the time he’s spent in the horror genre working on Vacancy, it’s straight-to-DVD sequel and the kid-friendly horror film, The Hole as well.  Apparently Warner Bros. is really digging Smith at the moment because on top of Chain of Events, the studio is also quite pleased with his drafts of Queen of the Tearling, which has Emma Watson attached, and the Appian Way-produced projects, Norse and Endurance.

As for Tyldum, he’s got a couple of things in the works, The Disciple Program with Mark Wahlberg and a crime thriller called Ghostman.  No word on which will take off first, but should The Imitation Game live up to its Academy Award hype, one of the bunch will likely go into production fast.

Here’s the Chain of Events description via Hachette Book Group:

William Sandberg, once a well-respected military cryptologist pursuing cutting-edge research, is a ruined man. His career is in shambles, his marriage is over, and he's succumbed to a dark depression.

But William's talents haven't gone unnoticed. A nameless, top-secret organization abducts him and tasks him with a daunting mission: decode a message that will reveal the disastrous prophecies hidden in our DNA before it is too late.

Meanwhile, William's ex-wife Christina is haunted by his absence and suspects there is more to his disappearance than just the reclusive impulse of a depressed man. Driven by her hunch, she sets out to find him and joins an eclectic cast of characters all drawn to a mysterious chateau in the Alps where the secret organization is plotting something-but is it revenge? Or a rescue mission? What is the organization hiding? What does the code have to do with the potent virus suddenly spreading around the world? And can William uncover the truth before it's too late?