Warner Bros. pays big bucks for airplane survival thriller DROWNING: THE RESCUE OF FLIGHT 1421

Over the weekend Warner Bros. obtained the rights to the forthcoming novel Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421and they paid big bucks for it after “one of the wildest book rights auctions” Hollywood has seen in a while.

The story is an air survival thriller, and was written by TJ Newmanwhose book Sagging was sold to Universal Pictures last week. Newman has certainly had an exciting couple of weeks! WB paid $1.5 million versus $3 million, and there were five other seven-figure offers on the table from other studios. The book is described as “Apollo 13 under water”.

Newman worked as a flight attendant while writing her debut novel, Saggingduring his free time. He has sold in three 7-figure deals: a worldwide publishing deal with Avid Reader / Simon & Schuster; foreign rights in more than 30 countries; and a $1.5 million film deal with Universal.

In Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421, “a plane crashes into the Pacific Ocean six minutes after takeoff and is flooded after an explosion during the evacuation. A dozen survivors sink in a sealed part of the plane as it perches precariously on an underwater reef 200 feet below the surface. Among them is an engineer and his 11-year-old daughter. His ex-wife – who is also the girl’s mother – is part of the elite rescue team racing to save the passengers before their air runs out.

Some of the filmmakers who wanted to grab the project include Steven Spielberg, Alfonso Cuaron, Damien Chazelle, Nicole Kidman, The Russo Brothers, M. Night Shyamalan, and producers like Jerry Bruckheimer, Peter Cerninand 21 rounds. The other studios that bid included Paramount, Legendary and Universal Television.

The film will be produced by Shane Salerno, who hired Newman after his first book was rejected by 41 agents. Newman will be an executive producer of Drowningwhose book will be published May 30 by Simon & Schuster.

Source: Deadline