Matt Reeves to adapt The Passage, the vampire apocalypse tale with a heart

By Sean O'Neal | April 18, 2011 | 10:35pm

Aux Features Film

Even those weary of vampires, apocalypses, and vampire apocalypses found reason to enjoy Justin Cronin’s The Passage, 2010’s popular beach read that couched a worn-out genre in literary pretensions—even though many were divided on whether it achieved them or not. What most could agree on, however, was that the book seemed crafted explicitly for an inevitable movie adaptation, especially seeing as Fox snapped up the movie rights in 2007 before Cronin had even finished writing the thing. And now that the novel has officially become a hit, the studio is finally moving forward on its investment, hiring Matt Reeves to direct the story of a world nearly wiped out by telepathic vampires and the young girl who may hold the secret to stopping them.

Cronin’s book has elements of The Stand, I Am Legend, and 28 Days Later built right in—not to mention a cinematic cliffhanger on seemingly every other page—so Reeves seems like a safe choice, having handled both vampires in Let Me in and devastation in Cloverfield (though he’s never quite worked with anything on this scale before). It remains to be seen whether Reeves will tackle this first or the sort-of-but-not-technically-They–Live remake first, but it seems likelier to be The Passage, considering it already has a script ready to go. Even better for Reeves and people who fear change: The Passage is just the first in a trilogy, meaning he could potentially shepherd in a new franchise, and keep us all awash in vampires and apocalypses and vampire apocalypses well into the next decade. So stop your worrying about the future, is what we’re saying.