With ‘Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421’ (German title: ‘Autumn’), author and former flight attendant TJ Newman wrote a bestseller, which many Hollywood studios literally did their best to adapt. How reported that Warner Bros. won the fierce bidding war, beating four other competitors who also bid seven-figure sums. Warner won the contract for $3 million. The author is guaranteed half of it now, and the other half will be available when the film actually goes into production.
For directing and writing “Drowning” became Paul Groengras obliged. Through his work on the ‘Bourne’ series, the filmmaker not only has experience with suspense thrillers, but has also directed films set aboard cramped vehicles with ‘Flight 93’ and ‘Captain Phillips’.
“Drowning” aka “Crash”: that’s what it’s all about
All this should now benefit him with ‘Drowning’, because it is not only important to tell a thrilling and very dramatic story, but also to capture the very claustrophobic atmosphere. The passengers of Flight 1421 are not only surrounded by the already narrow aircraft cabin, but are also buried under enormous amounts of water – because their plane crashed into the sea, sank and beached on a cliff, 60 meters below the surface of the water…
There are still some oxygen reserves on board, but they will not last long. And as the external pressure on the thin cabin shell continues to increase, a nerve-wracking race against time begins for the rescuers as they embark on the seemingly impossible rescue mission. And that is also determined by a very personal fate: Because while an engineer and his eleven-year-old daughter are stuck on board, the child’s mother is part of the rescue team…
Insider bestseller template
“Crash”, as the novel is called in the German translation, won’t be released in this country until March 20, 2024, but can be pre-ordered now. The English edition of the New York Times bestseller is already available. If you want to get an idea of TJ Newman’s work in German, you can also contact them Debut novel “Flight 416”*grab, also an airplane thriller.
None of TJ Newman’s books are based on true events. However, as a former flight attendant, she is likely to include a lot of realistic details in her descriptions – and will also bring this expertise to the film adaptation of ‘Drowning’, in which she says is on board as executive producer. It is not yet known when filming will begin.