It was announced this past summer that Anne McCaffrey’s beloved fantasy series, Dragonriders of Pern, is in development as a potential feature film franchise at Warner Bros. Pictures. Now, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that novelist and screenwriter Sarah Cornwell is set to adapt the first book, Dragonflight!
Launched in 1968 with Dragonflight, McCaffrey’s series consists of 22 books set in the fantasy world of Pern wherein an elite group of warriors take to the skies on the backs of giant, fire-breathing, telepathic dragons to save the wondrously exotic planet of Pern from a terrifying airborne menace. Dragonflight itself is officially described as follows:
To the nobles who live in Benden Weyr, Lessa is nothing but a ragged kitchen girl. For most of her life she has survived by serving those who betrayed her father and took over his lands. Now the time has come for Lessa to shed her disguise—and take back her stolen birthright.
But everything changes when she meets a queen dragon. The bond they share will be deep and last forever. It will protect them when, for the first time in centuries, Lessa’s world is threatened by Thread, an evil substance that falls like rain and destroys everything it touches. Dragons and their Riders once protected the planet from Thread, but there are very few of them left these days. Now brave Lessa must risk her life, and the life of her beloved dragon, to save her beautiful world…
Cornwell is best known for her first novel, “What I Had Before I Had You,” which saw publication earlier this year. On the screenwriting front, she’s currently adapting Jennifer Percy’s novel Demon Camp and rewrote the supernatural thriller The Forest. Based on an idea by David S. Goyer (Batman Begins), The Forest recently found a lead in “Game of Thrones” and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 star Natalie Dormer.
