Universal has won bidding rights for a futuristic thriller about a bankrupt United States, to be brought to the screen by the Transformers director

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Michael Bay is set to produce a futuristic adventure about a Trump-esque dystopia.

The script, called Little America, was the focus of a bidding war in Hollywood and according to the Hollywood Reporter, it was picked up by Universal Pictures for an undisclosed sum.

Trump v Hollywood? Don't expect to see the culture war play out on screen Read more

Written by British film-maker Rowan Athale, who will also direct, it’s set in a grim future where the president has bankrupted the US and many Americans have been forced to emigrate to China to find employment after the country calls in US debts. A Chinese billionaire hires a former American Force Recon member to find his lost daughter.

Sources have talked about a fun tone and likened it to 1981 thriller Escape from New York.

Athale is best known for 2012 crime thriller Wasteland (called The Rise in the UK). He also wrote the recently completed alien invasion film Revolt, starring Lee Pace and Bérénice Marlohe.

Bay’s next film as a director is Transformers: The Last Knight, while his production arm is set to release another Friday the 13th reboot and a new Amazon series focused on Tom Clancy’s character Jack Ryan, previously played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck.