EXCLUSIVE: Europa Report writer Philip Gelatt will adapt and direct a feature based on Laird Barron’s short story 30, the tale of two wildlife biologists, isolated on land once occupied by a Manson-style thrill-kill cult, struggling to find the cause of bizarre animal activity in the region. As their relationship deteriorates, and discoveries mount, they’re besieged by strange forces that seem to come from the very land itself.

Reno Productions’ Will Battersby and Peter Askin will produce and production is slated for spring 2015. Gotham-based Reno Productions is funding production with private investors. The company’s credits include the docu Trumbo and they just wrapped the environmental docu The Canal.

Barron spent his early years in Alaska, where he raced the Iditarod during the early 1990s and worked as a fisherman on the Bering Sea. He retired from racing in 1995 and began to write. He is the author of several books, including The Imago Sequence, Occultation, and The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. Barron is repped by publishing agent Janet Reid of Fineprint Literary Management, Pouya Shahbazian of New Leaf Literary & Media, and attorney Bradley Garrett of Cohen Gardner. Besides Europa Report, Gelatt scripted and directed the Tribeca Film Festival pic The Bleeding House. He’s represented by Paradigm and Madhouse Entertainment.