EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Fifth Season has landed rights to High Rise, the 2025 thriller novel from bestselling Australian author Gabriel Bergmoser. They’ve set Bergmoser to pen a feature adaptation and Patrick Hughes to direct, in a reunion with and Huge Film following their work on the recent Netflix hit War Machine.
Billed as Die Hard meets The Raid, High Rise follows a rogue ex-cop who tracks down his estranged daughter to a grimy high-rise — only to find she doesn’t want to be rescued, least of all by him. Before either can react, the entire city’s criminal underworld descends on the building with a bounty on his head and no concern for her survival. Floor by floor, a broken father and daughter must fight their way through fifteen stories of killers with only each other to rely on.
Hidden Pictures brought the book to Huge Film, with the two companies then taking it in to Fifth Season. Todd Lieberman (The Housemaid, upcoming Voltron) and Alex Young will produce for Hidden Pictures, alongside Hughes and Greg McLean for Huge Film.
Hidden Pictures’ Young told us, “Todd and I are thrilled to be working with Patrick & Greg again after having just had such a phenomenal experience making War Machine together. We love our time making movies in Australia and are excited to support Melbourne native Gabe Bergmoser in bringing his action-packed book to the big screen.”
Director-producer Hughes added, “We’re thrilled to be partnering again with Hidden Pictures, it’s a relationship we really value. High Rise also gives us a chance to continue championing Australian talent, which sits at the heart of Huge Film.”
An award-winning Melbourne-based author and playwright, Bergmoser broke out with the 2016 young adult novel Boone Shepard and 2020 adult bestseller The Hunted, which is being prepped as a film directed by John Michael McDonagh. Since then, he has published several acclaimed thrillers, including The Inheritance (2021), The Hitchhiker (2024), and High Rise (2025), the Audible Original mystery-thriller Backstory (2025), along with YA coming-of-age novel The True Colour of a Little White Lie (2021) and the middle-grade adventures Andromache Between Worlds (2024) and Andromache in the Dark (2025).
Bergmoser’s thriller novel The Caretaker (2023) — not to be confused with Marcus Kliewer’s book of the same name, being adapted for Universal, with David Bruckner freshly set to direct — has been picked up by Goalpost Pictures (The Invisible Man, The Sapphires) for a screen adaptation by the writing team of Alexei Mizin and Ryan Van Dijk (Watching You). His deal was brokered by Leslie Conliffe of Intellectual Property Group, which reps the author, on behalf of Tara Wynne and Curtis Brown Australia.
A sci-fi actioner starring Alan Ritchson, which marked the debut production from Huge Films, the Australian production company led by Hughes, McLean, and James Beaufort, Hughes’ War Machine garnered 39.3 million views in its first three days on Netflix in March, holding the No. 1 spot globally for two consecutive weeks, and reaching the Top 10 in 93 countries, and has now been viewed by over 100 million households. Currently at work on an untitled film for Amazon MGM Studios, reuniting him with War Machine‘s Ritchson, who stars as Navy SEAL turned Vietnam hero Mike Thornton, Hughes is also known for his work on The Man from Toronto, The Hitman’s Bodyguard films, and The Expendables 3. He is repped by Range Media Partners.
In addition to War Machine, produced for Netflix and Lionsgate, Lieberman’s Hidden Pictures is coming off their hit adaptation of Freida McFadden’s New York Times bestselling novel The Housemaid, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, which grossed nearly $400 million in its global theatrical run, opened at #1 on PVOD and digital platforms, and quickly spawned a sequel that has set Kirsten Dunst for a key role. Recently, Hidden Pictures has also reteamed with Hughes on his untitled Vietnam project for Amazon MGM, which is in post. They’re also currently cutting Voltron for the studio.
Coming off the release of films like Anniversary, She Rides Shotgun, Nonnas, and A Working Man, Fifth Season’s upcoming slate includes series like Netflix’s East of Eden, as well as Apple TV’s The Savant, a hate-group-themed crime thriller whose release was put off following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which star Jessica Chastain has revealed will be released in July.
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