EXCLUSIVE: Meryl Streep is poised to join Jeff Bridges and a fast growing cast in The Giver, an adaptation of the Lois Lowry novel that Phil Noyce will direct. Streep is in talks to join a shoot that starts in eight weeks in South Africa, in a co-production between The Weinstein Company and Walden Media. While there has been a plethora of movies involving dystopian young adult novel storylines, The Giver was ahead of its time, winning the Newbery medal in 1994. It was also a book widely read in Harvey Weinstein’s household by his daughters.

Streep will play the chief elder, the authoritarian charged with keeping order in a society that seems utopian. That control is endangered when a young man (Brenton Thwaites) is chosen to be the receiver of memories of life before the “sameness” movement which numbed the population and created conformism. Bridges plays the title character who delivers those memories that unlock a rebellion in the young man. The film is casting quickly, but landing Streep is certainly a coup. Bridges and Nikki Silver are producing and Dylan Sellers and Julie Rapaport are running point on the picture for The Weinstein Company. CAA reps Streep.