Will Poulter logs onto Metro's iBoy

We’re The Millers and Son of Rambow star Will Poulter is to lead the cast in the adaptation of well-received superhero novel iBoy, about a teenage boy who gains special powers when he’s hit by a falling iPhone.

2013 Screen Star of Tomorrow screenwriter Joe Barton has adapted Kevin Brooks’ London-set thriller, with commercials director Adam Randall on board to direct.

Donnie Brasco and Kinsey producer Gail Mutrux produces for US-based production outfit Pretty Pictures alongside London-based Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill and Lucan Toh of Wigwam Films (Having You).

Scheduled for a February 2014 shoot, Metro International is selling at the AFM and will be showing a teaser shot by Randall starring Poulter.

iBoy follows average teenager Tom whose world is turned on its head when a violent encounter with local thugs leaves fragments of a shattered smart-phone embedded in his brain. Tom knows, sees, and can do more than any normal boy ever could. With his new powers he sets out to take revenge on the gang that assaulted Lucy, the girl he loves. Taking the law into his own electric hands he faces moral decisions as well as local gangsters.

Discussions are underway with further cast and VFX companies. Momoco will provide the graphic effects.

Also on the slate of recently revamped Metro International are Toronto festival titles Half of a Yellow Sun, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton and Irish comedy The Stag, both of which get AFM screenings.

In post-production is the Nina Simone biopic, Nina starring Zoe Saldana and David Oyelowo, which is screening on promo, while in pre-production are Last Man Out with Pierce Brosnan and Agatha Christie’s Crooked House adapted by Julian Fellowes.