Brandon Cronenberg is following in his father’s footsteps and adapting a J.G. Ballard novel. Cronenberg’s dad David helmed the brilliant, disturbing car crash sex movie Crash, based on a Ballard novel of the same name, and now Brandon is going to turn Ballard’s book Super-Cannes into a limited series. The story is set in a multinational business park that “is a virtual city-state in itself, built for the most elite high-tech industries.” If you’re thinking, “Hey, that sounds a little like Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise!”, that’s because that, too, is based on a J.G. Ballard novel.

Possessor was my favorite movie of last year, so I’ve been dying to know what director Brandon Cronenberg was going to do next. Now I know, and you know too, since you’re reading this. Deadline reports that Cronenberg is going to direct a Super-Cannes limited series, based on the novel by J.G. Ballard. Per their report, “Gub Neal’s (The Fall) Ringside Studios, French media company and distributor Newen, and Andy Starke (Free Fire) of Anti-Worlds Film & Television have optioned the rights and will produce.”

“We’re delighted to be involved with Brandon and Andy in adapting such an iconic piece of work,” said Neal. “The source material is so rich and the characters so vivid that we are confident it will be an appealing project for both talent and buyers.” Starke said: “Super-Cannes is one of my favorite novels – a thrilling story that holds a dark mirror to contemporary society and morality – in the hands of Brandon Cronenberg it will be an incredible piece of television.”

And Cronenberg added: “Super-Cannes was an incredibly prescient novel that is more relevant now than ever — a heady blend of cutting politics and deviant psychology, built around a deeply satisfying detective story. I’m thrilled to get the opportunity to adapt it, and to be working on the series with Anti-Worlds and Ringside.”

In Super-Cannes, which was published in 2000, “A disturbing mystery awaits Paul and Jane Sinclair when they arrive in Eden-Olympia, a high-tech business park in the hills above Cannes. Jane is to work as a doctor for the executives who live in this ultra-modern workers’ paradise. But what caused her apparently sane predecessor to set out one morning and murder ten people in a shooting spree that made headlines around the world? As Paul investigates his new surroundings, he begins to uncover a thriving subculture of crime that is spiraling out of control.”

Ballard isn’t the easiest writer to adapt, but I have faith in Cronenberg, and I’m curious to see how his Super-Cannes pans out.

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