‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Helmers Zach Lipovsky & Adam Stein In Final Negotiations To Direct ‘The Traveler’ For Paramount

EXCLUSIVE: Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, the filmmakers behind this year’s horror smash Final Destination Bloodlines, are in final talks to direct sci-fi drama The Traveler for Paramount, sources tell Deadline.

Lipovsky and Stein are taking over the reins on the Skydance project from Lee Isaac Chung, who as we told you first, was the last director attached, pre-Paramount-Skydance merger. Sources said Chung exited due to conflicts with his work on the Ocean’s 11 prequel at Warner Bros.

While The Traveler‘s logline has been kept under wraps, the film is based on the forthcoming novel Traveler by Joseph Eckert. Sources described the project as an intimate family drama that exponentially develops into a vast science fiction odyssey. The novel explores the life of Scott Treder, a 47-year-old biology technician who begins experiencing involuntary jumps through time, and there’s been interest in mounting a feature adaptation for some time. An early version of the script, penned by Austin Everett, garnered significant industry attention a few years ago, making the Blood List, Hit List, and the Black List, with MGM looking to develop it back in 2019, as we were first to report.

Justin Rhodes (Terminator: Dark Fate) wrote the current draft. Adam Rosenberg and his Aro Pictures Banner will produce alongside Rodney Rothman.

In a recent conversation with Deadline, Lipovsky & Stein revealed that they’ve been passionately chasing The Traveler since the project was at MGM, when they were coming off pre-Bloodlines success with the indie Freaks.

“It’s very rare to read a script that you connect to so deeply. And honestly, I’ve been emailing our agents every six months for six years being like, ‘What’s the latest with that project?'” Lipovsky said. “So the second it became available, we were in there the next day pitching our hearts out to be on that film. Because it was the one that got away six years ago.”

Per Stein, the project’s “got everything we love in terms of an original sci-fi story that is very grounded, in terms of character, but has a very elevated theme of what it’s trying to say.”

Lipovsky and Stein have been on a tear in the wake of Final Destination Bloodlines, which broke out this summer as both the best reviewed and the highest-grossing installment in the New Line franchise with over $315M worldwide. In the aftermath, the pair have quickly established themselves as two of the industry’s most in-demand talents. Before beginning press for Bloodlines earlier this year, they quietly wrapped production on a sequel to Freaks — the film that got them on New Line’s radar in the first place. Upcoming, they’re also co-writing Gremlins 3 with Chris Columbus for Warner Bros., and directing both Long Lost for Universal and The Earthling for Sony. These projects represent just a handful of the deals inked by the duo on the heels of Bloodlines‘ success, with more still to come on others.

Lipovsky and Stein are repped by Verve, Ground Control’s Scott Glassgold, and Jamie Feldman at Lichter, Grossman, Nichols.