Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Tomorrow, When the War Began

7/17/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that screenwriter Stuart Beattie makes his directorial debut with the film adaptation, Tomorrow, When the War Began.  John Marsden authored the Tomorrow series which begins with an invasion and occupation of the island continent.  In the series, Australia is invaded and occupied by a foreign power. The novels are told from the point of view of Ellie Linton, a teen girl, who is part of a small band of teens waging a guerrilla war on the enemy soldiers in their fictional hometown of Wirrawee.  Though the war is fictional, Beattie plans to make it look real. "It's very much more in the style of, say, Black Hawk Down," Beattie said. "I mean, it's a war. It's the invasion of a country. So it's much more grounded, of course."  Beattie added, "Only four action sequences in the whole movie, but they're great action sequences. Because you're invested in the characters, you really care what happens in them."  Beattie is currently in Australia prepping for a September shoot. Omnilab Media is producing.

6/16/09 - Stuart Beattie will make his directorial debut with an adaptation of the young-adult SF novel Tomorrow, When the War Began, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Beattie also wrote the screenplay.  Tomorrow is the first novel in a popular series of seven written by Australian John Marsden and published 1994-99. The Tomorrow Series, as it is known, details the insurgency efforts of a band of Aussie teenagers fighting off an enemy invasion and occupation of their homeland.  Beattie is casting and crewing up for a September shoot Down Under.  The filmmakers plan to make a trilogy of features from the first three books and then, if they're successful, spin the next four off into a TV series.

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