Ever since HBO Max‘s thriller comedy series The Flight Attendant became a hit, studios, streamers and TV networks are looking for the next mid-air thriller. And they seem to have found the holy grail they’re looking for in a real-life flight attendant’s first writing attempt – a gripping thriller titled ‘Falling’.
Flight attendant T.J. Newman wrote the book inflight on iPads and on the back of airplane napkins. She landed a 7-figure, 2-book deal with Simon & Schuster’s Avid Reader Press for her efforts. And now, the resultant first book has become hot property in film and content circles.
14+ top filmmakers, film studios, TV networks and streamers are fighting to buy the rights to Newman’s book. Some are eyeing a film on the subject, while others want to convert the thrilling premise into a series. The plot of ‘Falling’ has been described as ‘Speed at 35,000 feet’ by some. The book has been caught in the eye of a fierce bidding war, with every content production company wanting a slice of the pie.
It’s not for nothing that there’s a raging war being fought for the rights of Falling. The premise is enthralling. The family of the pilot of a passenger flight is kidnapped half an hour before take off. Unbeknownst to the 140+ passengers on board the perilous flight, the pilot must crash the plane if he wants his family to live. As the pilot is caught in a relentlessly tense situation in mid-air, a hard-nosed FBI officer is fighting a race against time on the ground, to find and save the pilot’s family – quite like Keanu Reeves’ Speed, we must say.
Falling hasn’t even been published. It will hit the stands in July. But it has already achieved most wanted status much before that. Let’s see which production house manages to outbid the other contenders and win the fierce bidding war for the filming rights to Falling.
Stay tuned to Binged.com for further updates on this story.