As superhero movies continue to dominate at the box office, everyone is looking for the next big angle. And Shawn Levy, director of Real Steel and Night at the Museum, may have found it—with Brandon Sanderson’s book trilogy about evil superheroes, The Reckoners.


Levy and 20th Century Fox own the rights to the series—read our review of the first book in the series here, and our excerpt from the third book here. And they just hired writer Carter Blanchard (Independence Day Resurgence) to adapt the first installment, Steelheart.


This series has an amazing spin on the superhero themes, incorporating a post-apocalyptic element. Basically, some kind of event gives a small percentage of the world superpowers. These people, nicknamed Epics, then take over the world. As human beings with power tend to do. Now a growing group of normal humans, called the Reckoners, are trying to fight back. The main character, David, saw the most powerful Epic, Steelheart, kill his father and now he’s the only person who knows the Epic’s weaknesses.

So, the superheroes are the bad guys, and the humans are fighting back. Which is a neat twist on the genre. It’s not a revolutionary one by any means, but it could be just the right hook to freshen up the genre and kick off a whole new franchise. Or, it could fall flat like so many films that attempt to screw with such a tried and true formula.

[Deadline]