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# Paramount Sets Francis Lawrence to Direct ‘Red Rising’ Adaptation
- URL: https://www.theamericanquorum.com/paramount-francis-lawrence-red-rising-adaptation/
- Published: 2026-10-17T09:54:21.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-17T09:54:21.000Z
- Description: Paramount has acquired film rights to Pierce Brown’s “Red Rising” and attached Francis Lawrence to direct, giving the long-developing science-fiction adaptation a new studio, screenwriter and producing team.
- Author: News Desk
- Tags: Entertainment

Paramount Pictures is moving forward with a feature-film adaptation of Pierce Brown’s *Red Rising*, attaching Francis Lawrence to direct a project that pairs one of Hollywood’s most experienced dystopian filmmakers with a science-fiction property that has spent years searching for a durable screen home.

The [new agreement](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/red-rising-movie-francis-lawrence-1236733658/?ref=theamericanquorum.com) gives Paramount the film rights to the series and starts with Brown’s 2014 novel. Lawrence is attached to direct, while Justin Rhodes is set to write the screenplay. Lawrence and Cameron MacConomy will produce through about:blank with Francesco Goedhuis, and Brown will serve as an executive producer, according to [trade reporting](https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/francis-lawrence-red-rising-pierce-brown-paramount/?ref=theamericanquorum.com) published Friday.

## A Familiar Hand for a Difficult Adaptation

Lawrence’s selection is notable because *Red Rising* requires the same balance of intimate character stakes, political conflict and large-scale world-building that defined his work on *The Hunger Games*. Lionsgate’s own [franchise record](https://investors.lionsgate.com/news-events/news/news-details/2024/LIONSGATE-TO-ADAPT-SUZANNE-COLLINSS-NEWLY-ANNOUNCED-HUNGER-GAMES-NOVEL-SUNRISE-ON-THE-REAPING-INTO-MAJOR-MOTION-PICTURE/?ref=theamericanquorum.com) credits him with directing four earlier installments beginning with *Catching Fire*, in addition to the forthcoming *Sunrise on the Reaping*. He also directed the Stephen King adaptation *The Long Walk*, another story built around institutional violence and young people under extreme pressure.

That experience does not make the new film simple. Brown’s story begins with Darrow, a laborer in the lowest tier of a rigid, color-coded society. He believes his work beneath Mars is helping make the planet habitable, only to learn that the surface was transformed generations earlier and that his community is being exploited. The author’s [official synopsis](https://www.piercebrown.com/redrisingsaga?ref=theamericanquorum.com) describes a rebellion driven by that deception and by Darrow’s decision to infiltrate the ruling Gold caste.

The first novel moves from underground labor camps into physical transformation, elite education and deadly competition. It also establishes a social order that grows wider and more politically intricate in later books. For filmmakers, the immediate challenge is to make the caste system understandable without turning the opening installment into an extended explanation. The project must also create a visually distinct Mars while preserving the emotional logic that turns Darrow from a compliant worker into an insurgent.

## The Deal Is an Early Step, Not a Release Plan

The announcement establishes key creative roles, but it does not yet amount to a production schedule. Paramount has not announced casting, a start date, a budget or a theatrical release date. The studio’s current [public slate](https://www.paramount.com/movies?ref=theamericanquorum.com) lists several films through early 2027, but *Red Rising* is not yet assigned a date there. The difference matters: acquiring rights and attaching filmmakers can begin a long development process, and screenplays, financing and scheduling can all change before cameras roll.

The production also faces a basic scale question. A faithful version would require Mars environments, caste-specific visual design, extensive action and a cast capable of carrying later installments. Those elements can push costs upward before a studio knows whether the first film will attract viewers beyond the existing readership. Paramount must decide how much of the novel’s world to build immediately and how much to reserve for sequels that have not been ordered.

Rhodes enters the project with genre experience and a prior connection to Lawrence through an unproduced adaptation of the video game *BioShock*. The announced producing team also keeps Lawrence’s regular about:blank collaborator MacConomy involved. Brown’s executive-producer role gives the author a formal place in the production, though the companies have not detailed the scope of his creative authority.

The adaptation has a complicated history. A prior movie effort at Universal did not reach production, and Brown later explored a television version. Friday’s [rights report](https://www.darkhorizons.com/paramount-sets-plans-for-a-red-rising-film/?ref=theamericanquorum.com) marks a new configuration rather than a continuation of a greenlit project. Paramount’s decision to begin again with the first novel suggests the studio is treating the property as a potential film series, but no sequel commitment has been disclosed.

## Why Paramount Sees Franchise Potential

The strategic appeal is clear. *Red Rising* offers a built-in sequence of novels, an identifiable central hero and a world that can expand across multiple films if the first succeeds. Paramount is already developing other literary properties, including *Children of Blood and Bone*, *Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow* and *The Midnight Library*, according to the trade reports. The studio is therefore placing Brown’s saga within a broader effort to turn recognizable books into event films.

Lawrence’s involvement also signals that Paramount is prioritizing a filmmaker familiar with the demands of an established readership. Adaptations of popular genre novels are judged twice: as stand-alone movies and as interpretations of material readers already visualize in detail. His record offers the studio experience with that tension, but it does not settle questions about tone, rating, scale or whether the first film will preserve the book’s harshest material.

For now, the most consequential development is that *Red Rising* has a major studio, a director, a screenwriter and an author-producer attached at the same time. That is more concrete than the property’s earlier periods of speculation, but the next meaningful milestones will be a completed script, casting and a formal production order. Until then, the project is promising development news—not yet a guaranteed trip to Mars.