Daniel Brown To Direct Adaptation Of Chuck Palahniuk’s Cult Novel ‘Survivor’
EXCLUSIVE: Daniel Brown (Your Lucky Day) wrote and is gearing up to direct a feature adaptation of Survivor, the satirical 1999 novel from Fight Club‘s Chuck Palahniuk.
Set to shoot in Auckland, New Zealand in early 2026, the film follows the final hours of Tender Branson — the last surviving member of a puritan cult — as he recounts his rise from anonymity to superstardom aboard a commercial airliner with no one left to fly it.
The film will be produced by Ryan Rettig (Voyage of Time, Last Days in the Desert) and Miles David Romney (The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd, Oscar-nominated Ninety-Five Senses) for Community Garden and financier V42, with Mel Turner and Axel Paton at Auckland-based Ground Control (Wolf Man, Heart Eyes).
UTA Independent Film Group is handling worldwide sales with V42/D Squared Films.
Survivor gets off the ground here following multiple failed attempts at mounting an adaptation. 20th Century Fox optioned Palahniuk’s novel in the year of its publication, enlisting Jake Paltrow to adapt the screenplay, but shelved the project after 9/11 due to the fact that the story involves an airplane hijacker. Francis Lawrence, the filmmaker behind The Long Walk and The Hunger Games franchise, also previously eyed a feature take.
Brown is coming off of his feature directorial debut with Your Lucky Day, the action thriller starring the late Angus Cloud, which released in theaters in November 2023. He is repped by Navigation Media Group, UTA, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Palahniuk has previously seen his novels adapted to film twice, with Fight Club and Choke. The author of myriad novels, works of nonfiction, and graphic novels — as well as short stories and adult coloring books — he most recently published the novel Shock Induction in 2024. He is repped by Donadio & Olsen.
