“The Maze Runner” director to helm epic Norse fantasy “Fall of Gods”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Twentieth Century Fox is teaming up with Wes Ball, the director of its YA franchise The Maze Runner, for an epic Norse fantasy, The Hollywood Reporter reveals.

The studio has picked up the rights to Fall of Gods, a crowdfunded illustrated novel from Denmark-based Mood Studios.

Steve Tzirlin, best known for his work on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, is producing as are Joe Hartwick Jr. and Ball. Brooklyn Weaver is also producing.

Mood’s concept designer, Rasmus Berggreen, ran point on the book project and teamed up with Michael Vogt, the lead writer of the Hitman video game, with the intent to bring back a more Scandinavian stamp on Norse mythology.

The story, according to its Kickstarter funding page, is set in a realm with two races, humans and the jotnar, and centers on a warrior named Vali who found peace in the arms of a woman:

“For years he has lived far from society, tending to his farm and trying to forget the battles he fought…and the crimes he committed. But one day his love disappears, and he must set out to find her. He will once again have to face the creatures of Jotunheim and the powerful Aesir. Suddenly, the man he thought he had buried deep down inside has risen to the surface once more...and he comes seeking vengeance."

Ball is one of the town’s rising directors and Fox is intent on keeping him in the studio fold. He made a splash with his sci-fi short Ruin and then made his feature directing debut with 2014’s The Maze Runner, the adaptation of James Dashner’s post-apocalyptic YA novel. The sequel, Maze Runner: Scorch Trials, opens Sept. 18.