Peter Jackson to bring Mortal Engines to the screen

Universal Pictures have announced that Mortal Engines, the film version based on the award-winning book series, is coming to cinemas in December 2018 and that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, two of the team behind The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, are set to write and produce it.

In collaboration with Universal and MRC, Jackson and Walsh will oversee the project but the former will not direct the film. That job is set to go to Christian Rivers, a visual effects and storyboard artist who has worked for Jackson through his career, and who was also second unit director on this year’s Pete’s Dragon. Engines would mark his directorial debut.

The film will be based on the first novel in the series created by Phillip Reeve, which was published in 2001 winning many awards. The story is set “in a world many thousands of years in the future. Earth’s cities now roam the globe on huge wheels, devouring each other in a struggle for ever diminishing resources. On one of these massive Traction Cities, Tom Natsworthy has an unexpected encounter with a mysterious young woman from the Outlands who will change the course of his life forever.”

Predator’s Gold, Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain are the other three books in the series although no word yet on whether those are also in production just yet. Mortal Engines however is set for release on December 14th, 2018.