{"id":523395,"date":"2026-03-06T22:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/523395\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T22:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:38:08","slug":"the-author-behind-the-social-network-has-an-asteroid-movie-coming-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/523395\/","title":{"rendered":"The Author Behind ‘The Social Network’ Has an Asteroid Movie Coming Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know that right now, as you read this, there is an asteroid flying toward Earth that has a small chance of hitting us? It\u2019s very, very true<\/a>. The asteroid is called 2024 YR4<\/a>, and it\u2019s the subject of an upcoming novel, which just sold its movie rights, and both have some very recognizable names attached to them.<\/p>\n

Scheduled for publication early in 2027, the novel itself is called The Last Orbit, and it\u2019s the latest work by Ben Mezrich. Mezrich is famous for<\/a> writing books that have become movies, most notably The Accidental Billionaires, which became David Fincher\u2019s The Social Network<\/a>. He also wrote Bringing Down the House (which became 21) and The Antisocial Network <\/a>(which became Dumb Money).<\/p>\n

This one, however, is not a non-fiction book like those. It\u2019s speculative fiction, spinning a fictional tale from real-life facts. For example, if 2024 YR4 were actually going to hit Earth, what could we do realistically about it? Think Armageddon, but a little more based on facts.<\/p>\n

Though the book is still months from release, Deadline<\/a> reports TriStar Pictures has acquired the film rights and set Matt Shakman (The Fantastic Four: First Steps) to direct from an adapted screenplay by Josh Friedman (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes). There\u2019s no word on when this might happen, but for comparison, in two weeks, another space adventure film based on a novel<\/a> is coming out called Project Hail Mary, and that took six years to hit the big screen.<\/p>\n

Now, lucky for you, you are reading this on io9, which is part of Gizmodo, which has an incredible science team.<\/a> They\u2019ve been covering the real-life 2024 YR4 for a while now and have reported that it has a 4% chance of hitting us in 2032<\/a>. Which is pretty slim, right? You\u2019d take those odds all day. But, on the other hand, there is still a chance it hits us, and, well, that would not be good. Hence, whatever happens in Mezrich\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

You can read even more<\/a> about the asteroid<\/a> at these links<\/a>. And we\u2019ll keep an eye on the sky about the film adaptation too.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did you know that right now, as you read this, there is an asteroid flying toward Earth that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[114128,59997,64,63,260683,15530,105,260684],"class_list":["post-523395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-2024-yr4","tag-asteroid-impact","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-mezrich","tag-matt-shakman","tag-technology","tag-the-last-orbit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}