Gunpowder & Sky adapts Wells classic

US production company Gunpowder & Sky is developing a modern spin on HG Wells’ novel The Island of Dr Moreau through its sci-fi label Dust.

Zack Stentz

Moreau will be written by Zack Stentz (X-Men: First Class, Thor, Rim of The World, Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles).

The plot focuses on renowned scientist Dr Jessica Moreau, whose pioneering work in genetic engineering catches the eye of a billionaire backer willing to stop at nothing to reach the next step of human evolution.

Stentz is represented by Circle of Confusion, a management and production company that partnered with Gunpowder & Sky in April to develop and produce feature films and series sourced from writers, directors and producers who have had their work released on Dust and Alter, Gunpowder & Sky’s sci-fi and horror brands respectively.

Stentz said: “The double helix wasn’t even a twinkle in Watson and Crick’s eye when HG Wells first wrote The Island of Dr Moreau, but his 1896 novel proved astonishingly prescient about how unlocking the secrets of DNA would open the door to humanity playing God with the natural world in strange and frightening ways.

“And now, in the shadow of the CRISPR revolution, it felt like the perfect time to revisit Moreau and bring it into our own 21st Century world of transgenic animals, designer babies and other scientific advances Wells never could have dreamed of.”

Recently, Dust teamed up with John Wick creator Derek Kolstad, John Davis (Predator), and Black Label Media (Sicario, La La Land) on Time Agent, a high-octane time travel feature film.

In September, Dust announced that they have partnered with maverick filmmaker Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Encounters at the End of the World) and his son, Rudolph Herzog (How to Fake a War, The Heist) to produce Last Exit: Space, a new documentary exploring mankind’s push to colonise space.