Paramount Pictures has picked up the rights to the sci-fi novel by Ramez Naam called Nexus. This sounds like it could be a really cool movie. The story "takes place in the near future in a battle for mind control. A young technologist becomes the first person to invent controllable nanotechnology software for the brain. He then becomes an unwilling pawn in an international battle to control the new technology, chased by mercenaries and government agents looking to make enhancements of their own. The book was published to rave reviews late last year by Angry Robot."
The studio is currently looking for someone to adapt the film, and they are in negotiations with Ari Handel and Mark Heyman to take it on. Handel has worked with Darren Aronofsky on several projects as well as his upcoming Biblical epic Noah. Then there's Heyman who wrote Aronofsky’s Black Swan. Both of these guys seem like solid writers, so this could end up being a great movie.
The fact that both writers have worked with Aronofsky makes me wonder if maybe this could be a future project for Aronofsky to direct somewhere down the road. I could see him taking on something like this.
Here's the full description from the book:
In the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link humans together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it.
When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he's thrust over his head into a world of danger and international espionage - for there is far more at stake than anyone realizes.
From the halls of academe to the halls of power, from the headquarters of an elite US agency in Washington DC to a secret lab beneath a top university in Shanghai, from the underground parties of San Francisco to the illegal biotech markets of Bangkok, from an international neuroscience conference to a remote monastery in the mountains of Thailand - Nexus is a thrill ride through a future on the brink of explosion.