Shonda Rhimes and Matt Reeves Developing Blake Crouch’s RECURSION for Netflix
Netflix has secured the rights to international bestselling author Blake Crouch’s upcoming novel RECURSION for Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beer’s Shondaland and Matt Reeves’ 6th & Idaho for a feature film as well as a television universe. RECURSION will be published by Crown on June 11, 2019.
At once a relentless save-the-world sci-fi thriller, an epic romance, and an intricate police procedural, RECURSION explores what happens when a brilliant female scientist invents a powerful technology that allows people not just to reactivate their most visceral memories but to reinvent them entirely. For some, it offers the chance to rewrite their entire lives. In the wrong hands, it will upend the world as we know it.
“Projects like this are why I came to Netflix,” said Shonda Rhimes. “The opportunity to explore a multi-genre universe in innovative ways is extremely exciting. Matt and Blake both have the tremendous ability to build compelling characters and imaginative landscapes and I am thrilled to work alongside them.”
“Blake’s mind-bending novel presents an incredible opportunity to explore its expansive narrative simultaneously through both film and television,” said Matt Reeves. “Netflix is uniquely suited for this ambitious undertaking and I can’t imagine a more exciting partner than the astonishingly talented Shonda Rhimes whose work I have admired for years.”
Blake Crouch is the author of the New York Times-bestselling novel DARK MATTER, for which he also wrote the script for Sony. His Wayward Pines trilogy was adapted and aired for two seasons as a high-profile limited event television series on Fox. His most recent project, Good Behavior, based on his novellas, just finished its second season at TNT with Michelle Dockery starring.
“I have been a fan of Shonda’s and Matt’s work going back years,” said Crouch. “To have these titans of television and film working on something of mine is an incredible honor, and Netflix is the pitch-perfect home for people who want to adapt film and TV in the most innovative way possible.”
Last year, it was announced that writer, producer and television hitmaker Shonda Rhimes was bringing Shondaland production company to Netflix under a multi-year deal to produce new series and other projects. This summer Netflix announced the first slate of series being developed by Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers and their team to premiere exclusively for Netflix members around the world.
Earlier this year, it was announced Netflix will get an exclusive first look at any feature films that Matt Reeves wants to produce and/or direct under his production company, 6th & Idaho, one of the first of its kind at Netflix. Adam Kassan and Rafi Crohn both oversee film and TV for 6th & Idaho. Reeves is currently working on The Batman, the next iteration of Batman for Warner Bros., which he is writing and directing. It was also recently announced that 6th & Idaho will be partnering with Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish’s The Imaginarium on an adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which Serkis will direct.