The story of six boys stranded on a remote island that has been dubbed the “Real Lord of the Flies” is to become a Hollywood movie.
Dutch historian Rutger Bregman pieced together the true tale of how a group of Tongan teenagers ended up shipwrecked together on a tiny Pacific island for 15 months, after stealing a fisherman’s boat in the 1960s.
A newspaper article Bregman penned to promote his book Humankind went viral two weeks ago, sparking a fierce bidding war among Tinseltown studios.
“The Real Lord of the Flies will become a movie!! The last two weeks have been a crazy rollercoaster,” Bregman tweeted on Friday. “Lots of Hollywood studios suddenly wanted to buy the rights to the story of Sione, Luke, Mano, Tevita, Fatai and Kolo.”
Unlike in William Golding’s classic novel Lord of the Flies, the real-life boys peacefully cooperated during their time on the uninhabited rocky islet of ’Ata.
“The kids worked together in teams of two, got a fire started and never let it go out and stayed friends this whole time,” Bregman wrote in an earlier tweet.
They survived on fish, coconuts, birds and eggs, drew up strict rosters for their duties, and even created a makeshift gym and badminton court.
Rutger’s article published by the Guardian describes how the author tracked down an Australian ship captain who spotted and rescued the boys. It has reportedly received 8 million views.
After interest from “a lot of studios” who “bombarded” him with inquiries, Rutger spoke with the captain and four surviving castaways on a Zoom call.
They decided to sell the rights to The Revenant and 12 Years a Slave producer New Regency, and share the proceeds, Rutger wrote.
Hollywood trade publication Deadline said that “a low-seven-figure deal” was being negotiated amid competing bids from the likes of Netflix and MGM.
New Regency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Speculation had been mounting in Hollywood over a possible movie version.
New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi, who directed Thor: Ragnarok, earlier tweeted that any film should “prioritize Polynesian (Tongan if possible!) filmmakers.”
Rutger said that New Regency had promised to “do everything to strive for cultural authenticity and work as much as possible with local crew/filmmakers,” and would hire the castaways and other Tongan consultants.
“Finally, after 50 years, the survivors have reconnected and the world will hear their story, and we all look forward to the day we meet on the red carpet,” Rutger said.
DISPUTED WATERS: The Philippines accused China of building an artificial island on Sabina Shoal, while Beijing said Manila was trying to mislead the global community The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is committed to sustaining a presence in a disputed area of the South China Sea to ensure Beijing does not carry out reclamation activities at Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Reef), its spokesperson said yesterday. The PCG on Saturday said it had deployed a ship to Sabina Shoal, where it accused China of building an artificial island, amid an escalating maritime row, adding two other vessels were in rotational deployment in the area. Since the ship’s deployment in the middle of last month, the PCG said it had discovered piles of dead and crushed coral that had been dumped
Experts have long warned about the threat posed by artificial intelligence (AI) going rogue, but a new research paper suggests it is already happening. AI systems, designed to be honest, have developed a troubling skill for deception, from tricking human players in online games of world conquest to hiring humans to solve “prove-you’re-not-a-robot” tests, a team of researchers said in the journal Patterns on Friday. While such examples might appear trivial, the underlying issues they expose could soon carry serious real-world consequences, said first author Peter Park, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in AI existential safety. “These
The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows from Tasmania to the UK — and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend. The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun — came just after 4pm GMT, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. It was later upgraded to an “extreme” geomagnetic storm — the first since the “Halloween Storms” of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged
A Philippine boat convoy bearing supplies for Filipino fishers yesterday said that it was headed back to port, ditching plans to sail to a reef off the Southeast Asian country after one of their boats was “constantly shadowed” by a Chinese vessel. The Atin Ito (“This Is Ours”) coalition convoy on Wednesday set sail to distribute fuel and food to fishers and assert Philippine rights in the disputed South China Sea. “They will now proceed to the Subic fish port to mark the end of their successful mission,” the group said in a statement. A Philippine Coast Guard vessel escorting the convoy was