Scott Smith's Horror-Thriller 'The Ruins' Coming to Big Screen

It's been almost a decade since Sam Raimi brought Scott B. Smith's debut novel and screenplay, A Simple Plan, to the big screen. You remember it, right? Billy Bob Thornton, Bill Paxton and Bridget Fonda starred in it. The film nabbed an Oscar nomination for the author and his screenplay, as well as a supporting actor nod for Billy Bob. After the best-selling success of his first piece, Smith took his time crafting his follow-up, The Ruins, which was published last year. Now, the novel has been picked up for feature treatment, and the only thing that's surprising about this is how long it took.

Production Weekly has reported that the thriller will be heading into production in the coming months (tentatively scheduled for May), but there's no word on whether Smith is once again penning the adaptation, or if someone else will be giving it a shot. Honestly, I can't see why he wouldn't, since he's proven to be skilled at changing his prose into dialogue. Carter Smith, filmmaker and photographer, has also signed on to direct the adaptation.

Similar to Plan, Ruins deals with a group of well-meaning people who find themselves embroiled in dangerous drama. Two couples, Jeff/Amy and Eric/Stacy head to Mexico after Jeff finds a great deal. While in Cozumel, they meet Mathias, a German traveller who is distressed about the disappearance of his brother, Henrich, who ran off to be with some girl on an archaeological dig. He convinces the couples to help find his missing brother, and the group, along with a Greek named Pablo, find themselves face-to-face with a horror in the jungle -- one that Stephen King has described as "suffocating, terrifying, claustrophobic." Not too bad, eh? If you're hungry for more, follow the PW link to read an excerpt that gives a lot of backstory to the characters.

* Thanks to JF for pointing out that there are two Carter Smith filmmaker/photographers. The correction has been made. MB