Never heard of Jeff Somers or his novel “The Electric Church”, but the premise of the techno-thriller sounds pretty decent. Sony Pictures has acquired movie rights to Somers’ three novels in the series, and has hired screenwriter Trevor Sands to turn the first one, “The Electric Church”, into a movie. If the name Trevor Sands sounds familiar, that’s probably because he recently finished adapting the “Hyperion” novels for Warner Bros., with Scott Derrickson (“The Earth Stood Still”) attached to direct.
The plot of “Church” revolves around the lead character, Avery Cates, a freelance New York bodyguard-assassin in a near future Earth run by a federation of nations and governed by a council. Things get complicated for our hero when he kills a cop by mistake and is given the choice of execution or killing the founder of the Electric Church of the title, a church that converts people by transplanting their brains into robotic bodies that denies them free will.
