EXCLUSIVE: Paramount has landed Intruders, a script by Armored screenwriter James V. Simpson that is best described as an alien home invasion thriller. The concept is inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the “Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter,” in which a Kentucky family claimed to have survived an all-night alien home-invasion attempt.

The film will be produced by Dan Farah through his Farah Films, and Roy Lee and Jon Berg of Vertigo Entertainment. The producers hope the sci-fi premise would lead to a franchise.

The deal comes as Farah produced the Warner Bros/Amblin Steven Spielberg-directed Ernest Cline novel adaptation Ready Player One, which premiered last night in Hollywood and opens Thursday. Farah secured screen rights from the author a year before the book was published and became a bestseller. Lee’s Vertigo is coming off the horror hit It. Paramount production president Liz Raposo will oversee the project for the studio.

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Home invasion has become a hot genre. Blumhouse recently made a deal for Invasion, a spec script by John Swetnam and Harris Wilkinson that wraps a ticking-clock sci-fi premise with immigration for a thriller that revolves around a home invasion that happens during an alien invasion.

Dan Farah

Farah also is producer of Burden, the Forest Whitaker-Garett Hedlund film that premiered at Sundance and won the Audience Award. Farah has the second season of the Warner Bros Television show Famous in Love premiering April 4 on Freeform and produces The Shannara Chronicles on Netflix.

Vertigo is currently in production on Nimona at Fox, The Turning for Amblin and The Lego Sequel for Warner Bros, with the New Regency-set His House, the Sony-set The Grudge and New Line-set It Chapter 2 all in pre-production.

Simpson is repped by Verve and attorney Dave Feldman; Farah by attorney Matt Galsor; and Vertigo by CAA and Stone, Genow.