Stuart Hazeldine has revealed that he's completed the script for adapting The Tripods novels, which also became a popular BBC television series, from the John Christopher works into the big screen outing directed by Alex Proyas.

Hazeldine reveals that they are concentrating on the first story at the moment but there's every hope to make it into a trilogy and that budget negotiations are underway.

All this is great news, a completed script from Stuart Hazeldine who wrote and directed the clever British film Exam, which I have yet to see, missing at the EIFF this year due to scheduling conflicts, and the excellent Alex Proyas, think The Crow and Dark City.

He talks a little about the plans for the film, but not that much, however I've still included the interview below which came from Digital Spy through the excellent Quiet Earth:

So there's not that much there, however the news is that the script is complete and the film is going ahead, especially if they are bantering about budget with the studio. They are pushing for something in the area of District 9 (Filmstalker review) budget, but that bantering process is still ongoing.

For those of us who are really keen to see the Tripods film made this is good news, and for those of you who have no idea about the novels or the television series then here's a quick blurb.

Looking at the blurb for the novel it says that an alien race who invade Earth and enslave humans who accept them in their society and even build rituals around the aliens application of a mind control device into every teenager born. The aliens are never seen and always travel around in large, three legged machines, and they keep the human race at an early stage of arable farming life.

The novel follows a family who escape The Tripods and head to Switzerland who are holding out against the occupation/invasion. However the Tripods soon invade and the Masters being taking over. However the family escapes into the alps and forms a resistance to fight back against the Tripods.

It's a great story told over four novels, but only the first two were adapted into the television series, the third was cancelled.