Gemma Arterton And Paddy Considine Join She Who Brings Gifts

With Glenn Close in the M. R. Carey adaptation

Writer M. R. Carey has a portfolio that takes in a wealth of comic-books, including Lucifer for DC Vertigo and X-Men and Fantastic Four for Marvel, as well as a sci-fi horror novel, The Girl With All The Gifts. It’s the latter that today’s news concerns: it’s being adapted for the big screen as She Who Brings Gifts with Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close and Paddy Considine all aboard.

Director Colm McCarthy, best known for his TV work on Sherlock and Peaky Blinders, has tapped up the trio to inhabit a world ravaged by an infection, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, that’s reduced a large chunk of humanity to ravenous creatures called 'Hungries’. The surviving uninfected have built safe havens to avoid being turned into hungries canapé. One of them, ten-year-old Melanie, has been captured and is being studied by captors intrigued by her genius-level IQ.

Runs the enigmatic synopsis: "Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into a wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite. But they don't laugh. Melanie is a very special girl.”

She Who Brings Gifts shoots in the UK in May with Camille Gatin and ’71 man Angus Lamont producing. “It’s hugely exciting to combine Mike Carey’s truly original script and Colm McCarthy’s dynamic yet sensitive style with such a terrific cast,” say Gatin. Joss Whedon fans take note. The Avengers man is a big fan of the novel, describing it as “heartfelt, remorseless and painfully human… as fresh as it is terrifying. A jewel."

from Empire News