17 Jan 2014 03:27:24
James Frey, best known for his partially-fabricated memoir A Million Little Pieces, has landed a reported $2m (£1.2m) film deal for his latest novel, a Hunger Games/Battle Royale-esque story about duelling teenagers.
According to film website Deadline, Frey's young adult novel Endgame has sold to HarperCollins, with sister company Fox striking a film deal for "around $2m". The story, said Deadline, is set on an Earth-like planet, where there are 12 "bloodlines, or races".
"Each bloodline has a champion between the ages of 13 and 17 who is trained as a warrior and is always ready to do battle. When they turn 18, the teen warrior behind them gets promoted. This has been the case for hundreds of years, but no one remembers why – they're always ready for some sort of battle to take place, but it never does. But the tradition continues. And then one day they're called to fight, and all the bloodlines but the winners will be exterminated. They're fighting to be the last race," Deadline reported.
The website believes the excitement over Frey's latest outing indicates that the author's "value has been rehabilitated since the days of his addiction memoir A Million Little Pieces". Following that book's betselling success, Frey was revealed to have made up parts of the bestselling memoir. When the news came to light, he and his publisher agreed to refund those readers who felt they had been tricked.
He has since written novels, including a controversial retelling of the life of Christ, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, and launched collective writing project Full Fathom Five. This has put out titles including I Am Number Four, about a teenage alien attempting to live undercover in the US, but has also drawn criticism over the way it treats its recruits.
Frey's new deal has already provoked an unfavourable response online, with readers commenting on a perceived similarity between Endgame and Suzanne Collins's story of fighting teenagers, The Hunger Games. "A million little katnisses," wrote Alex Shephard, of US publisher Melville House. Koushun Takami's earlier cult hit Battle Royale also features teenagers battling to the death.
