Director Ridley Scott To Adapt Israeli Professor’s Book ‘Sapiens’ To Screen
Ridley Scott Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” the bestselling book by Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, will be adapted to a movie.
The film will be adapted from the book by American director Ridley Scott and British documentarian Asif Kapadia, the Hollywood Reporter announced Wednesday.
The non-fiction book charts the course of the development of human beings from prehistoric man to present man. It originally was published as a textbook for Harari’s students at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
“It is a book that changes how you see the world and our adaptation should do the same, to serve as a wake-up call for who we are, where we have come from and where we are heading,” Kapadia said in a statement.
“We hope to mix science, fiction, history, drama and genius in order to bring to life the incredible journey of our species, that began as an insignificant animal and is now on the verge of becoming a god,” Harari said in the statement.
“Sapiens” has sold 8 million copies worldwide in 30 different languages since its publication in 2011.
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at fisher@forward.com, or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
