Matthew Pearl’s historical novel The Technologists has taken one mighty step toward the silver screen today, now that The Hollywood Reporter has revealed Alex Siskin – producer behind Sony’s hardboiled thriller The Equalizer – has nabbed film rights to Pearl’s original work.
First published four years ago, The Technologists is billed as an historical thriller, one centering on the inaugural MIT class circa 1868. Attached to pen the adaptation himself, Pearl’s adventure takes place “after an unnatural disaster strikes the ships in Boston Harbor, and an equally inexplicable catastrophe devastates the heart of the city, sparking an anti-science backlash that casts a pall over MIT and threatens its very survival. The best and brightest from the college’s first graduating class secretly join forces to save innocent lives and track down the truth.”
Assembling the college’s best and brightest to unravel a historical conspiracy certainly sounds promising on paper, and THR notes that Siskin originally happened across the novel during production on The Equalizer back in 2013. Speaking of which, the producer is also returning alongside Denzel Washington for a sequel to the cult actioner, and now that Sony has booked a release date, expect Washington’s Robert McCall to answer the call on September 29, 2017.
Looking further afield, Siskin also offered up a brief statement after securing film rights to The Technologists, stating:
“There’s a lot of complicated stuff in the story of The Technologists, and that’s part of its attraction. It has all of our current obsession and anxiety about technology, completely current themes and characters, including terrorism, but it has superb historical detail and sophistication.”
Tell us, have you read Matthew Pearl’s historical novel and if so, are you excited to learn that The Technologists is bound for cinemas?