Francis Lawrence To Direct Sci-Fi Film ‘Red Rising’ For Paramount

Paramount has acquired the film rights to Pierce Brown‘s New York Times bestselling sci-fi book series, Red Rising, enlisting Francis Lawrence to direct an adaptation of the same-name first installment, Deadline can confirm.

Justin Rhodes, a writer-producer with credits like Terminator: Dark Fate and the Prime Video series Secret Level, will write the script. Lawrence and Cameron MacConomy will produce for about.blank, alongside Francesco Goedhuis, with author Brown exec producing.

Red Rising follows Darrow, a “Red” miner on Mars who discovers his people have been enslaved by the ruling Gold caste. After being remade to infiltrate Gold society, he joins a rebellion seeking to overthrow his world’s color-based hierarchy.

This is just the latest high-profile book adaptation set up at Paramount, which releases a big-budget take on Tomi Adeyemi’s YA romantic fantasy novel Children of Blood and Bone on January 15, 2027. Others upcoming include Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — in theaters November 12, 2027 — and The Midnight Library.

Best known for directing five Hunger Games films — including The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, out November 20 — Lawrence is coming off the Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk for Lionsgate. Most recently, he inked a deal with the same studio for Carry Me to My Grave, an adaptation of a recently published horror novel by Christopher Golden that he’s eyeing to direct and produce.