Amazon MGM Studios, United Artists and Heyday Films are in negotiations to preemptively acquire the film rights to “TimeLess,” the first adult fantasy novel from A.F. Steadman, author of the best-selling “Skandar” series, TheWrap has exclusively learned.
United Artists’ Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt will produce with Heyday Films’ David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford. Steadman will executive produce. The project is the first film under Heyday’s first-look film deal with the studio. Annie McCreery, who brought in the book, will oversee the project for United Artists.
Set to be published on Mar. 11, 2027, “Timesless” is the first installment in a sci-fi/fantasy trilogy. The story centers on Artemis and her crew, who are handpicked to live outside linear time and trained as assassins, historians and weapons experts at an elite university that protects history from time vandals. As they deploy to the front lines of a war across centuries, Artemis discovers the enemy she was trained to destroy may hold the key to her forgotten past and to a conspiracy that could unravel time itself.
Simon & Schuster acquired the trilogy in a three-book worldwide deal, with a coordinated rollout in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. The novel sparked bidding wars in 11 territories.
Steadman’s “Skandar” series was the biggest children’s fiction debut launch in the U.K. in 20 years. Rights sold in 45 territories before publication, and the books have been translated into 48 languages.
At United Artists, Stuber is currently in production on “Lizard Music,” the next collaboration between Dwayne Johnson and Benny Safdie, and in post-production on “Highlander,” starring Henry Cavill. He’s also prepping Michael Mann’s “Heat 2,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale, and “The Mandela Catalogue,” an analog horror adaptation with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment that series creator Alex Kister will direct.
Heyman produced all eight “Harry Potter” films and the three “Fantastic Beasts” films, along with “Barbie,” “Gravity,” “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” “Paddington,” “Paddington 2” and “Wonka.” He’s producing Amazon MGM’s James Bond film and the “Harry Potter” series, which premieres on HBO Max Dec. 25. Taika Waititi’s “Klara and the Sun,” starring Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams, opens in theaters Oct. 23. Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial,” starring Andrew Garfield, opens Christmas Day.
Steadman is repped by Sam Copeland at RCW Literary Agency.
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