Uri Singer, the producer of Experimenter, has optioned the rights for a film adaptation of non-nobel-prize-winning author Don DeLillo‘s White Noise, according to Indiewire. The plan is to have Experimenter writer/director Michael Almereyda — with whom, between that film and the upcoming Jon Hamm/Geena Davis/Tim Robbins-starring Marjorie Prime, Singer’s already done his fair share of collaborations — pen the screenplay.
White Noise is carried by undercurrents of unshakeable malaise and alienation, as it sees a professor at a small-town liberal arts college (he teaches in the self-made field of Hitler studies) suddenly dealing (even more than usual, as he’s already somewhat death-obsessed) with his own mortality after a certain Airborne Toxic Event — which merely exacerbates the scary fundamentals of the human condition — while, in the meantime, his current wife deals with a secret addiction to a drug, Dylar, that makes people unafraid of death.
Singer said of the novel in a statement:
I think the book combines a sense of humor with a sense of menace. The book has great dialogue and features many cinematic episodes. It radiates an appreciation of American life but also elements of satire. There’s a central love story between a husband and wife, but with an awareness of the secrets and fears that they keep from one another.
As Indiewire notes, there’s a lot going on surrounding DeLillo novels onscreen right now — Alex Ross Perry optioned the rights for The Names, while Benoît Jacquot is directing Mathieu Amalric in an adaptation of DeLillo’s short novel, The Body Artist.