EXCLUSIVE: Aperture Entertainment has optioned rights to bestselling author Andrew Pyper’s recently published novel William, with Justin Dyck (Casket Girls, Anything for Jackson) set to direct.
Penned under Pyper’s sci-fi/thriller pen name Mason Coile, William hit store shelves September 3 via Putnam.
The author and Chris Sivertson will adapt the novel as a thriller to be shot in Canada.
A contained sci-fi horror film that blends the worlds of Ex Machina and The Amityville Horror, William is set in a timely haunted house story in which the haunting is AI.
The New York Times Book Review praised the novel, calling it “a cyber-horror tale that combines cerebrality and carnage … a twist on The Shining in which the house is haunted by a ghost in the machine. … Coile [elevates the genre] with meticulously unsettling prose and a knowing dissection of character that transcends stereotype.”
Pyper is the internationally bestselling author of 11 novels including The Demonologist, winner of the International Thriller Writers Award. His hit audible original series Oracle is being adapted into an hourlong drama series by Amazon MGM Studios with 3 Arts Entertainment.
Canadian director Dyck is in preproduction on Casket Girls starring Gabrielle Union with QC Entertainment financing. Dyck also developed Welcome to the Neighborhood at Amazon with Platinum Dunes producing.
Sivertson wrote The Image of You, starring Sasha Pieterse, based on the bestselling novel by Adele Parks. He has also written and directed genre films including Monstrous starring Christine Ricci; All Cheerleaders Die, which premiered at TIFF Midnight Madness; and his adaptation of Jack Ketchum’s The Lost.
Adam Goldworm’s boutique management production company Aperture Entertainment is best known for adapting genre IP into formidable packages. Aperture is producing several Grady Hendrix feature adaptations including Ankle Snatcher at Sony, How to Sell a Haunted House at Legendary, Horrorstor at New Republic, and an indie production of Ezra Claytan Daniels’ graphic novel Upgrade Soul. On the TV side, Aperture is developing Hendrix’s Final Girl Support Group with Andy Muschietti directing and Charlize Theron producing as a series at HBO Max, and an adaptation of the hit Image comic series Proof at Fox with Westbrook. Goldworm previously produced the indie hit adaptation of Derf Backderf’s award-winning graphic novel My Friend Dahmer.
Pyper is repped by UTA and Kirby Kim at Janklow & Nesbit. Dyck is repped by WME, Aperture Entertainment and attorney Ashley Silver. Sivertson is repped by Aperture and Jerry Dasti at Sloss Eckhouse.
Aperture is represented by attorney Ashley Silver at Brecheen, Feldman, Breimer, Silver and Thompson.