Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend, The Long Walk) is developing an adaptation of Christopher Golden‘s forthcoming supernatural horror novel Carry Me to My Grave, Deadline reports.
Lawrence is eying to direct and produce under his first-look deal with Lionsgate, who has locked down the rights to the book.
Lawrence’s partner Cameron Maconomy will also produce, as will Scott Glassgold for 12:01 Films. Golden and Pete Donaldson will executive produce.
Publishing July 21 via St. Martin’s Press, Carry Me to My Grave is described as a high concept horror novel about a man trying to protect his dead mother’s body from the evil that is hunting them.
The full synopsis reads: “Maggie Wise will take your eyes.
“When Malcolm was growing up, the local kids made up that chant about his mother, claiming she was a witch. He and his siblings did their best to ignore it. Now, Maggie is dying, and those same siblings have left Malcolm and his sister-in-law Violet to hold a vigil at her bedside.
“But they’re not as alone as they think they are. A dark figure waits and watches from beneath the willow tree across the street. Hundreds of miles away, an ancient evil stirs in its burrow under a farmer’s cornfield.
“Across the country, other buried things begin to dream in anticipation of Maggie’s demise. On her deathbed, the old woman elicits a promise from Malcolm, her youngest child―when she dies, he and Violet must return her body to her birthplace in Shediak, Maine.
“From the moment she takes her last breath, before her remains are even loaded aboard the baggage car of the Imperial Limited, there are forces trying to stop Malcolm from fulfilling that promise. Violence erupts on the train, evil preys on its passengers, and once the sun goes down, those long-buried things are coming to make Maggie Wise pay for her past. God help anyone who stands in their way.”
Golden, who co-wrote Hellboy: The Crooked Man, has two other high-profile adaptations in the works: Road of Bones from Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, and The House of Last Resort for Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society.
Up next from Lawrence is The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, out November 20.
