The in-development adaptation of Alfred Bester’s mindbending 1956 science fiction novel The Stars My Destination has a writer, with David DiGilio tapped to pen the script for the film from Disruption Entertainment.

Originally published in serialized form in Galaxy Magazine, The Stars My Destination is set in the 25th century when personal teleportation has completely upended human society. The story follows Gully Foyle, a merchant traveling through the Solar System who, after an attack by unknown forces, finds himself alternately stranded, abandoned to die by people working for the same company, then imprisoned when it comes out that unknown to him he was carrying a secret and highly valuable metal necessary for an ongoing war effort. Upon escape, he sets about settling scores as he learns who set him along that course, and why.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s loose retelling of Dumas’ The Count Of Monte Cristo, though the story goes well beyond that novel’s core themes and plot points into some positively trippy territory involving transhuman modification, metaphysics, interstellar colonization, and questions of faith and humanity. It’s better known as Tiger! Tiger! in the U.K. thanks to the opening-page reprint of a William Blake poem, and also the iconic tiger facial tattoo Foyle receives early in the story. Best read, perhaps, with a heaping spoonful of your favorite glaucoma remedy, (and that’s not an insult), the book was an enormous influence on subsequent sci-fi, including just for one example, 90’s cult classic TV series Babylon 5.

It’s ambitious concept to be certain, and Kong: Skull Island helmer Jordan Vogt-Roberts is tapped to direct. Paramount is distributing after nabbing the rights earlier this year, and Mary Parent is producing through her Disruption Entertainment. DiGilio is repped by UTA, Industry Entertainment, and Jackoway Tyerman. Roberts is repped by UTA, 3 Arts Entertainment, and Jackoway Tyerman.