Paramount has acquired film rights to Pierce Brown‘s New York Times bestselling sci-fi book series Red Rising, enlisting Francis Lawrence to direct an adaptation of the first installment, Deadline can confirm.
Justin Rhodes, a writer-producer with credits like Terminator: Dark Fate and the Prime Video series Secret Level, will write the script. Lawrence and Cameron MacConomy will produce for about:blank alongside Francesco Goedhuis, with author Brown executive producing.
Red Rising follows Darrow, a “Red” miner on Mars who discovers his people have been enslaved by the ruling Gold caste. After being remade to infiltrate Gold society, he joins a rebellion seeking to overthrow his world’s color-based hierarchy.
The deal marks the latest high-profile book adaptation set up at Paramount, which releases a big-budget take on Tomi Adeyemi’s YA romantic fantasy novel Children of Blood and Bone on January 15, 2027. Others upcoming include Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — in theaters November 12, 2027 — and The Midnight Library.
Best known for directing five Hunger Games films — including The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, out November 20 — Lawrence is coming off the Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk for Lionsgate. Most recently, he inked a deal with the same studio for Carry Me to My Grave, an adaptation of a recently published horror novel by Christopher Golden that he’s eyeing to direct and produce.
THR was first to the news of Red Rising.