Paul Greengrass To Adapt, Direct T.J. Newman Novel ‘Drowning: The Rescue Of Flight 1421’ For Warner Bros

EXCLUSIVE: Paul Greengrass has been set by Warner Bros to adapt, direct and produce Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 421. The T.J. Newman bestselling novel was the subject of a fevered bidding battle, with Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy landing the book for $1.5 million against $3 million. There were four other seven-figure bids on the table.

The project reunites De Luca and Greengrass, who worked together on Captain Phillips. Greengrass will produce with Shane Salerno and The Story Factory and Greg Goodman, with Newman and Amy Lord serving as executive producers.

In Drowning, a plane crashes in the Pacific Ocean six minutes after takeoff and is flooded after an explosion during evacuation. A dozen survivors sink in a sealed part of the aircraft as it perches precariously on an undersea cliff 200 feet below the surface. Among them is an engineer and his 11-year-old daughter. His estranged wife — she’s also the girl’s mother — is part of the elite rescue team that races to save the passengers before their air runs out.

This comes after Deadline revealed that the next installment of The Bourne Identity franchise will be directed by All Quiet on the Western Front helmer Edward Berger. Greengrass, who directed three Bourne films and with Matt Damon established it as a billion-dollar franchise, followed those films with the searing 22 July and News of the World. Drowning plays to his strength: a technically complex and pulse-pounding rescue operation combined with the human element of a mother in a desperate race to save her daughter. He did that with the Bourne films, 22 July, United 93, Captain Phillips and going back to his narrative feature breakthrough, Bloody Sunday.

The novel quickly hit the New York Times bestseller list and recently was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, Waterstones and other major publications and booksellers.

Newman worked as a flight attendant as she wrote her debut novel Falling, which sold in three seven-figure deals: a worldwide publishing deal with Avid Reader/Simon & Schuster, foreign rights in more than 30 countries and a $1.5 million movie deal with Universal and Working Title. The novel became the fastest-selling fiction debut for Simon & Schuster since 2004.

Greengrass is represented by CAA. Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 421 was published in May by Simon & Schuster.