Sony has pre-empted "The Ballad of the Ember Knight," a 190-page spec script set in the 14th century, paying close to seven figures to first-time screenwriters Kieran and Brennan O'Dea. The deal is notable both for its unusually high price for an untested writing duo and for reflecting renewed studio appetite for literate period drama, a trend the article links to the success of Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey".

The script is a medieval epic set during the Hundred Years' War between France and England, following a warrior falsely accused of murdering the royal family who must protect the kingdom's last surviving prince to clear his name. Sony executives Brittany Morrissey and Peter Kang brought the project in without any producers attached, and despite discussions about turning the sprawling story into a television series, the O'Dea brothers insisted on keeping it as a feature rather than trimming it to the standard 112-page length. The siblings, raised in Baltimore and Rochester before settling in northern Idaho, are represented by CAA and Kaplan Perrone.