After seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it was clear that Daisy Ridley was going to be a breakout star. While she wasn’t able to land the lead in the Tomb Raider reboot (that went to Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander), it looks like she might have another franchise on the horizon.
According to THR, Ridley has landed the lead in the post-apocalyptic thriller Chaos Walking. Doug Liman will direct the adaptation of Patrick Ness’ best-selling young-adult trilogy, which takes place in a world “where all living creatures can hear one another's thoughts in a stream of images, words and sounds called Noise.” The two main characters are Todd Hewitt and Viola Eade, so presumably Ridley has the Viola role, and it will be interesting to see who they cast opposite her.
Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) adapted the book, and Jamie Linden (Money Monster) penned a draft, but with Liman’s style of directing, scripts kind of go out the window and you figure it out the day before (that’s how he made Edge of Tomorrow).
Ridley recently wrapped filming on Star Wars: Episode VIII and she’s booked roles in the Hamlet reimagining Ophelia opposite Naomi Watts as well as the war drama The Lost Wife.
Here’s the official synopsis for the first book in Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking trilogy, The Knife of Never Letting Go:
Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him -- something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn't she killed by the germ like all the females on New World? Propelled by Todd's gritty narration, readers are in for a white-knuckle journey in which a boy on the cusp of manhood must unlearn everything he knows in order to figure out who he truly is. [Amazon]
