Studios battle to land airplane thriller described as Speed at 35,000 feet

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Hollywood loves a good bidding war and THR has reported that the latest revolves around Falling, a thriller novel from first-time author T.J. Newman. Written on the backs of napkins and on iPads while she worked as a flight attendant on a red-eye route, T.J. Newman's Falling has been described as "Speed at 35,000 feet," and studios, networks, and streamers are eating it up.

The novel, which won't be published until July, finds 140-plus passengers on a crowded flight from New York to LA who don't yet know that that their pilot's family has been kidnapped a mere half-hour before takeoff. "Now, in order for his family to live, the pilot must follow orders and crash their plane," reads THR's premise. "While much of the story takes place in the air, there is also said to be a relentless FBI agent trying to save the family on the ground." This sounds like something that absolutely would have been at home in the mid-90s. I love it. Fourteen different studios, networks, and streaming services are said to be bidding on the project, and THR has heard that there are at least two formal offers on the table, one from a studio hoping to give Falling the feature-film treatment and another from a network that envisions the project as a limited-series.

T.J. Newman worked as a flight attendant for a decade and said that the idea came to her when she realized how vulnerable pilots and their families could be to terrorist threats. After asking a pilot what he would do if he had to choose between his family and his passengers, Newman noticed the horror in his eyes at the mere thought of the question. When COVID-19 brought her flights to a halt, Newman completed her manuscript and has since signed a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster worth seven-figures.