Is a planned movie adaptation of best-selling novel We All Looked Up still happening? Asteroids or meteors have long been good fodder for disaster movies, from Sean Connery's 1979 vehicle Meteor to Michael Bay's gleefully destructive Armageddon. Author Tommy Wallach's debut novel We All Looked Up takes a very different approach to the genre, which focuses on a group of teenagers bonding as it looks like the world will soon end thanks to an impending asteroid strike.
The teens are very much a Breakfast Club-inspired bunch, including an athlete, a brain, a punk, etc. The book is more in line with Lars von Trier's Melancholia than the likes of Armageddon, however, and it spent over 20 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. Author Wallach also recorded a companion album to go along with his book.
The novel attracted some considerable buzz upon publication, but are there still plans for a We All Looked Up movie adaptation?
Deadline exclusively confirmed in 2014 that Paramount Insurge had optioned We All Looked Up, with John Davis (The Predator) attached as a producer. Wallach also spoke of his excitement over the novel being optioned but stressed that there was still some distance to go before a potential movie was greenlit.
Ever since the initial confirmation of We All Looked Up being optioned, no further word on the project has been revealed. No directors or cast have been attached and there's no sign of it heading into production. It's worth noting that Paramount Insurge - which was created to handle smaller budget projects within the studio like The Devil Inside - was shut down in 2015, meaning plans for We All Looked Up may have been cancelled with its demise.
While fans of the novel would love to see a movie version, at present it seems there are no plans for a We All Looked Up movie. Lots of promising books are optioned by studios that don't end up moving forwards, and sadly that appears to be the case with We All Looked Up. With Paramount seemingly focused on bigger budget projects like Mission: Impossible 7 & 8 for the foreseeable future, if the movie is revived, it will probably be at a different studio.
