No stranger to teen fiction and the problematic relationship between children and adults, Weitz has also directed The Golden Compass , About A Boy and A Better Life. His writing credits include the screenplays for the former two films, and the 1998 DreamWorks animated feature Antz .
Weitz’s first novel in the series, The Young World , is set in New York City following a global catastrophe that wipes out the entire adult population, leaving only teenagers who must now learn to survive in a broken world. He explains the concept, saying:
“These young survivors experience combat, romance, and post-apocalyptic nostalgia for a pop culture and technology they entirely took for granted.”
This series seems set to carry on a long-standing tradition of exploring how children would cope in a world without adults: the premise might remind you of the New Zealand drama series The Tribe (1999-2003), or the YA series Gone by Michael Grant, which both deal with the vanishing of the adult population. And if you added zombies, you’d probably think this was part of the Charlie Higson horror series The Enemy .
The Young World is set to be released in Spring 2014.
