Andrew Joseph White’s debut novel Hell Followed With Us has been picked up by a bevy of production houses that plan to adapt it into an animated feature.
According to Deadline, Trustbridge Entertainment, Anarchists United—the company of Lilly Wachowski (The Matrix) and Sarah Marie Flores—and several other studios including Circle M+P, Powerhouse Animation Studios, and Line Mileage will be involved.
“Anarchists United and Circle M+P are beyond thrilled to be a part of this amazing team in support of Andrew Joseph White’s harrowing novel,” Wachowski, Flores, and Circle M+P Founding Partner Lawrence Mattis said in a statement. “Hell Followed With Us shines a much-needed light on the power of found family and the imperative to protect our LGBTQIA+ siblings in the fight against dogmatic hate.”
Hell Followed With Us came out in 2022 to great popular and critical acclaim. Here’s the summary of the book, per Goodreads:
Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.
But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.
Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.
“Hell Followed With Us is such a visceral combination of dystopian fantasy, action, and horror that turning it into an epic anime-inspired feature was a no-brainer,” Trustbridge Entertainment President Bob Higgins said in a statement to Deadline. “The gut-wrenchingly honest personal journey that is truly the heart of this story requires filmmakers with an authentic point of view to translate, and that is exactly what we’ve got with this dream team of producers and writers.”
White (pictured above) will also consult on the development and production of his book. “From working with queer and neurodivergent artists to tackling the book’s hardest topics with enthusiasm, the production team has such an amazing vision for Hell Followed with Us,” he said in the same statement. “I can’t wait to bring the book’s rage at a transphobic world to a new audience, right when we need it.”
The project is still in its early days, though we know that Alvaro Rodriguez (Machete, Seis Manos) and Warren Wagner (The Only Safe Place Left Is The Dark) are penning the script. No news yet on casting or if/when the feature would make its way to a screen near you.
