Michael Shannon & Michael B. Jordan to star in HBO’s Fahrenheit 451

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

An adaptation of "Fahrenheit 451" was put into development by HBO last year when they tasked Ramin Bahrani (99 HOMES) with writing and directing a film based on Ray Bradbury's classic novel. "Fahrenheit 451" depicts a dystopian future in which media is an opiate, history is outlawed and "firemen" burn books. HBO's adaptation of the novel has attracted some considerable talent as it has been reported that Michael Shannon and Michael B. Jordan are set to star in the TV movie.

Michael B. Jordan will play Montag, a young fireman who forsakes his world, battles his mentor and struggles to regain his humanity, with Michael Shannon set to play Beatty, Montag’s fireman captain and mentor. Ramin Bahrani will pen the script with Amir Naderi, his co-scribe on 99 HOMES, and the project is slowly moving towards a formal production commitment.

Although the influence of "Fahrenheit 451" can be found in countless movies, the novel has only been adapted to the big-screen on one occasion. François Truffaut wrote and directed the 1966 film of the same name which starred Julie Christie, Oskar Werner and Cyril Cusack. If you never read the book in high-school, here's a synopsis of "Fahrenheit 451" via Amazon.

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.

Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.

When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.

Both Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon have plenty of projects on the horizon, with Jordan playing the lead villain in Ryan Coogler's BLACK PANTHER as well as being attached to star in a remake of THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR. As for Shannon, he will appear in Guillermo del Toro's THE SHAPE OF WATER, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's THE CURRENT WAR and Nicolai Fuglsig HORSE SOLDIERS. Busy dudes.