The Flock

Warner Brothers has optioned a movie adaptation of The Flock, a novel by James Robert Smith about a modern day run-in with the descendants of prehistoric, carnivorous birds. The story synopsis, as pulled from the author’s website:

Salutations USA is the ideal town built by Berg Brothers, the studio that for generations produced family films. Constructed on a parcel of the decommissioned site of what was the Edmunds Bombing Range, it is the great studio’s intention to create a place that is what America once was. with room to expand.

But the land beyond Salutations is wilderness- 450, 000 acres protected from development because of its former military status. Other forces struggle against the company for control of those acres. Vance Holcomb, billionaire ecologist wishes to construct a research center, saving the rare habitats. Winston Grisham, retired Marine colonel, wants all parties away, capitalist exploiters and meddlesome tree-huggers alike; he and his militia wish to be left alone. Ron Riggs, Fish and Wildlife officer wants to know what is lurking at the edges of Salutations. And the lawyers slug it out in the Florida courts.

Unknown to most, this backcountry is home to the last population of a creature believed to be extinct: Titanis walleri, a predatory ground bird of saurian form. The creatures, possessed of near-human intelligence, have hidden since the first Native Americans came from the north. With humans on the doorstep knocking to come in, the Flock does not wish to be disturbed.

Could be cool- that is, as long as Hollywood doesn’t wreck it... like having the birds protect their habitat by wimping out and organizing a benefit concert or something. Archeologists have long since determined that a “terror bird’s” preferred method of negotiation was disembowelment; I’m hoping that the movie’s producers don’t forget that fact.