He then brought Lionsgate in and we talked about where it might go, what might happen. Patrick Ness: There was a producer called Doug Davison who was very interested since book one, but I said, “I’m not selling the movie rights until all three books are out.” He kept the faith and very patiently waited. How were you approached to adapt your novel for the screen?

Patrick Ness and Tom Holland on the set of ‘Chaos Walking’ So that’s where it began, with the question of how does sharing affect us? We had never been faced with something like this in our culture and I thought the next logical step was: what if we didn’t have a choice? What if we had to hear everything we thought and what if it was everybody? What a nightmare that would be, particularly, if you were young and trying to figure out who you are and what mistakes you could make without everybody noticing. That was interesting to me because it felt quite noisy, noisier than I’ve ever been before. We were starting to feel obliged to share our lives and the boomerang effect was that you start to hear everybody else’s life. When I was writing the book between 2007-2008, social media was really taking off and was in its first Golden Age. Patrick Ness: It started with an idea about information overload. Could you tell us how the story of The Knife of Never Letting Go first came to be? We dive into how it felt watching Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley bring his characters to life and what to expect from his collaboration with director Doug Liman in Chaos Walking. With numerous successful novels and screenplay adaptations, Ness’ career is littered with success and one that not all author-turned-screenwriters in Hollywood are so fortunate to see.

We were lucky enough to speak exclusively to Ness and pick apart the process of bringing his beloved work to the big screen.

Starring two of the world’s biggest stars in Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland, the film follows Todd Hewitt (Holland) who in the not too distant future discovers a mysterious girl named Viola (Ridley) after she crash-lands on his planet where all women have disappeared.Ĭhaos Walking moves “past the expectations of just another genre movie” and “deserves to be seen at the very least.” As the original author, Patrick Ness took it upon himself to join the film’s production also as a screenwriter. However, things change on March 5 as the film finally hits theaters. With numerous rewrites, reshoots, and a worldwide pandemic delaying the release, Chaos Walking (retitled from the novel) has been pushed back on two separate occasions. It is no exaggeration to say that it has been a troubled journey bringing Patrick Ness’ 2008 book The Knife of Never Letting Go to the big screen.

Chaos walking book 3