Lois Lowry Confirms Jeff Bridges to Film The Giver

UPDATE 3/19/2014:
When Lois Lowry came in to talk about about Son, the last installment in her incredibly popular young adult series The Giver, the author let slip a brilliant piece of news — a movie version was in the works. Here’s your first look!

Watch the trailer below.

Jeff Bridges has been interested in making a film of The Giver since the 1990s, when Lois Lowry‘s dark science fiction novel for young adults was a bestseller. The story has yet to shoot. But yesterday in an interview with Kurt Andersen, Lowry confirmed that the film has a green light.

“I’ve just heard within the past couple of days that The Giver, which they’ve been trying to make into a movie for 15 years, is finally on the road,” she told Andersen. “Things have ratcheted up, and they have producers and money and a director and a star. They hope to start shooting it in the spring.” Jeff Bridges will play the Giver, the powerful elder who holds all of his community’s memories. “As we speak,” Lowry said, “they’re interviewing young boy actors for the role of Jonas,” the 12-year-old who is chosen as the Receiver of those memories, and learns the appalling secrets behind his community’s orderly, peaceful way of life.

News of Bridges’ production began circulating again this fall, but as recently as October, Lowry was dubious. “Every now and then, some big studio gets involved, and some major player gets involved,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “And then time passes, and it all collapses again. I should be feeling excited, as if now is the time it’s actually going to be made. But this has happened so often before.”

Bridges originally intended the film to star his father, Lloyd, who died in 1998. While he’s hardly the long-bearded ancient depicted on the cover of The Giver (Lowry, a photographer, took the picture herself), Bridges at 63 has gravitas to spare.

Listen to Kurt’s full conversation with Lois Lowry.