English author William Golding’s first and most acclaimed novel,Lord of the Flies, is coming to the big screen again, and producer Lindsey Anderson Beer teases a “fresh” but “scary” adaptation. Published in 1954, Golding’s book is considered an absolute classic of English literature, since its story is timeless thanks to the themes it tackles, such as human nature, and the conflicts of living in society while facing difficult circumstances. The story focuses on a group of boys who suffer an accident while traveling by plane, and are stranded on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Far from adults and everything they know, they must learn to survive together. However, trying to establish order will not be simple in the situation in which they find themselves and without any authority figure to guide them.
Lord of the Flieshas been adapted to film three times in the past. The first, directed by Peter Brook, was released in 1963, followed by a Filipino version in 1975. In 1990, Harry Hook directed the most recent adaptation of the source material, although there are several projects that have taken the main elements of the story, such as the hit Showtime seriesYellowjackets.
While the BBC confirmed earlier this year that they were developing the first television version ofLord of the Flies, director Luca Guadagnino will bring the story to big screen, with Lindsey Anderson Beer producing. Speaking withColliderfor the release ofPet Sematary: Bloodlines,Anderson Beer spoke about the director’s vision for this new adaptation:
“It leans so much into psychological horror and it’s so rich in character drama, as you would expect from somebody like him. But it’s scary… It gives you so much unease reading it, and I think it taps into a more current version of it than we’ve seen before.”
Related:Why We Need a Modern Lord of the Flies Remake
Ladyworld, the Female-Led Adaptation of Lord of the Flies
AlthoughYellowjacketshas much in common with the novel, the acclaimed show added many elements outside the mythology ofLord of the Flies, also focusing on the lives of the protagonistsmany years after the accidentand having been lost. In fact, it is not the first attempt to change the story by putting a group of women as protagonists instead of men.
In 2018, director Amanda Kramer releasedLadyworld, a modern adaptation ofLord of the Fliesthat centers on a group of women trapped in a house after an earthquake. With food and water running low as time passes by, each person’s survival instincts begin to take over, jeopardizing the social balance within the group.
Another recent production that attempted to explore a plot similar to that of the novelis Netflix’sThe Society, although with a much larger group of survivors. The story focuses on a group of teenagers who go on a school trip, but end up being transported to an alternate reality where their town looks the same, but there is no adult around to control them nor can they go beyond the border, which them forces to build a new social organization.
