Michael Bay’s dystopian future-set film Time Salvager is finally moving forward as it finds its writer in Zak Olkewicz. The movie will be based on a teen novel written by Wesley Chu, which was published in 2015.

A fast-paced time-traveling thriller, Time Salvager tackles a story set in a dystopian future where Earth has become so toxic, humans are forced to flee to the outskirts of the solar system in hopes of living much longer lives. Its story follows convicted criminal James, who is dubbed a “chronman” and is sent back in time to possibly retrieve resources but without doing any significant changes to the timeline or else, he will die. Having no choice but to execute what he was told to do, James seamlessly does his job until he came across Elise Kim, a scientist from a previous century fated to die in an ocean rig destruction. Despite all the laws that forbid him, James smuggled his newfound friend to the future where they both live fugitives.

Deadline now reports that the big screen adaptation of the sci-fi book has officially tapped Olkewicz to pen its treatment with Bay still attached to direct. The project from Paramount will be produced by Bay’s frequent Transformers affiliates, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian.



Olkewicz, who is a co-producer on the low-budget supernatural/horror film, Lights Out, is currently working on a slew of scripts which is mostly in the horror genre. The list includes another big screen adaptation of R.L. Stine teen book series, Fear Street with Leigh Janiak to direct and James Wan’s graphic novel, Malignant Man with Stranger Things‘ Becca Thomas to helm.

No cast has been announced for the film, nor any target release date but this is a huge step forward with regard to the project eventually coming to fruition. Bay has long been trying to push forward with the adaptation of Time Salvager and while it has been quite a slow process, this move indicates that the project is still very much alive in Paramount.

This development comes after the filmmaker has once again declared that he is already done helming Transformers movies after this summer’s Transformers: The Last Night waning box office sales compared to its predecessors and bad reviews from critics. That said, Bay’s announcement is not entirely new to us. He has previously said that the same thing with regard to the third film from the franchise, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, as well as the fourth movie Transformers: Age of Extinction so it is a little bit difficult to take his word for it.

Time Salvager does not have a release date as of this writing. We’ll keep you updated on the latest information.


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