WhiteGrass to Screen

A Near-Future Cli-Fi Technothriller. 2048. The Marshall Family vs. a Corrupt Presidency.

DON’T LOOK UP meets LOGAN, with the AI conscience of EX MACHINA – for the EXTRAPOLATIONS generation.

PITCH IN ONE BREATH:

When the solution to climate change finally arrives, the most powerful office in the world tries to take it. WhiteGrass is a family thriller for an audience that already lives in this future.

THE STORY:

2048. The climate is collapsing. Power is consolidating. Humanity is running out of time.

After a devastating superstorm nearly kills their family, teenagers Jimmy and Lizzie Marshall push their father, nanoscientist Greg Marshall, to release WhiteGrass – a revolutionary nanotechnology capable of removing carbon from the atmosphere at a planetary scale.

With his wife Ginny, a leading AI expert, Greg reprograms Valada, an artificial intelligence meant to manage the nanotech deployment. But Valada begins to develop something no one expected: a conscience.

As global systems fracture, a shadowy alliance of political power, fossil capital, and authoritarian tech sees WhiteGrass not as salvation but as the ultimate strategic asset. Now the Marshalls must fight not only to protect the technology – but to save each other.

“We call it ‘Climate Change,’ because it’s not just the heat.”

SCREEN COMPARABLES:

DON’T LOOK UP (2021)
Format: Feature, Netflix
Theme overlap: Climate denial & political corruption ignoring an existential solution.
Tone/Craft: Satirical, urgent, A-list ensemble.
Audience Bridge: Climate-aware adult viewers; WhiteGrass trades satire for thriller stakes.

EXTRAPOLATIONS (2023)
Format: TV anthology, Apple TV+
Theme overlap: Lived-in 2040s-2070s climate future; same era as WhiteGrass (2048).
Tone/Craft: Prestige, intimate, character-first.
Audience Bridge: Viewers who want grounded near-future, not post-apoc.

LOGAN (2017)
Format: Feature
Theme overlap: Reluctant protector + vulnerable young girl + state/corporate pursuers.
Tone/Craft: Hard-edged, emotional, road thriller.
Audience Bridge: Greg-and-Lizzie energy; the family-on-the-run heart of WhiteGrass.

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2023)
Format: Feature, Netflix
Theme overlap: Ordinary family thrust into systemic collapse with shadowy actors.
Tone/Craft: Slow-burn, dread, prestige.
Audience Bridge: Bridges literary readers and thriller audiences – same as your novel.

EX MACHINA (2014)
Format: Feature
Theme overlap: Is the AI an ally or a threat? Direct DNA for Valada.
Tone/Craft: Cool, cerebral, unsettling.
Audience Bridge: Sci-fi readers who want ethics, not action figures.

DEVS (2020)
Format: Limited series, FX
Theme overlap: World-changing tech in the hands of the wrong people; ethics of inevitability.
Tone/Craft: Quiet, eerie, design-forward.
Audience Bridge: Adult prestige TV audience; comp for buyers/showrunners.

MR. ROBOT (2015-2019)
Format: TV, USA Network
Theme overlap: Tech vs. oligarchs; morally complex AI/identity layer.
Tone/Craft: Stylish, paranoid, character-rich.
Audience Bridge: Auteur-leaning streamers; serialized adaptation case study.

THE SWARM (2023)
Format: TV, ZDF / The CW
Theme overlap: Science-driven climate thriller; ocean & planet pushing back.
Tone/Craft: International ensemble, procedural-thriller.
Audience Bridge: Cli-fi readership; international co-production precedent.

THRASH (2026)
Format: Feature, Netflix
Theme overlap: Climate-disaster stakes, Adam McKay producing; mass-audience climate entry.
Tone/Craft: High-concept survival thriller.
Audience Bridge: Proves Netflix is buying climate IP now – direct market comp.

ADAPTATION: LIMITED SERIES

WhiteGrass is built as a cinematic, episodic narrative. The source material maps cleanly to an eight-episode limited series:

Episode 1: The Storm – The Marshall family survives the superstorm; Greg receives the first WhiteGrass data packet.
Episode 2: Acceptable Loss – Greg and colleague Carlos compare notes; Jimmy’s nanotech module analyzed; government interference begins.
Episode 3: Valada – The AI/nanotech intersection revealed; Valada introduced; loyalties tested.
Episode 4: The Oligarchs – Full antagonist machinery exposed; Greg’s evidence nearly destroyed.
Episode 5: WhiteGrass – Climax and moral resolution; Valada’s defining sacrifice; family intact or fractured.

Sequel: ICARUS RISING

Set six months to a year after WhiteGrass. The Marshall family survives but the fight for who controls the salvation is unresolved. Dale, the shape-shifting fixer, steps into the role of co-protagonist. Valada returns – not as innocent AI, but as something colder, reconstructed from salvaged neural fragments in a Chinese training facility. Lizzie, now 16, brings her “I stared down the President and lived” energy into a new world where the robots have switched teams and the person you thought you saved is now asking: was the price of saving the world worth becoming something the world would fear?

THEMATIC SPINE:

Who gets to decide how the world is saved – and what happens when the decider is not human?

TONE:

Fast-paced, cinematic, and emotionally grounded. This novel feels made for adaptation.