Amblin Brings On ‘Liberty Road’ Scribes Widener & James For Adaptation Of Michael Crichton’s Last Novel ‘Micro’

EXCLUSIVE: Amblin has hired Liberty Road and Battle Of Alcatraz scribes Neil Widener and Gavin James to take over screenplay duties on Micro, the movie adaptation of the final novel by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton.

High-concept thriller novel Micro follows a group of graduate students lured to Hawaii to work for a mysterious biotech company — only to find themselves miniaturized and cast out into the rainforest, with nothing but their scientific expertise and wits to protect them.

As previously revealed by Deadline, Frank Marshall is producing and Sherri Crichton and Laurent Bouzereau of CrichtonSun are executive producers. Universal will distribute the movie which has been a passion project for Amblin’s Steven Spielberg. Darren Lemke was previously hired for the script, which doesn’t currently have a director attached.

The novel was unfinished when Crichton died in 2008 but was later completed by Crisis In The Hot Zone author Richard Preston and published by HarperCollins in 2011. It spent 20 weeks on the bestseller lists. Revered writer Crichton wrote and directed 1973’s Westworld and The Great Train Robbery and co-wrote and produced Twister. He is also well known as the creator of ER.

Widener and James’ scripts in development include Paramount’s Battle Of Alcatraz, Fox 2000’s WWII feature Liberty Road, Now You See Me 3 and San Andreas 2. They are repped by CAA, Grandview and Bloom Hergott.