Revisiting ‘Chaos Walking,’ Tom Holland & Daisy Ridley’s Forgotten 2021 Flop | Memory Holed

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Hey everyone, I’m Britt Hayes, and I’m so excited to launch this new column, ‘Memory Holed’! Basically, I’m a movie buff who loves digging up films and shows that had a moment – maybe a big cast, awards talk, or were based on something popular – but then just…vanished. It’s weird how quickly things get forgotten, right? These are the movies that should be part of the conversation, but somehow got deliberately pushed out of our collective memory. That’s what ‘Memory Holed’ is all about – bringing those forgotten flicks back into the light!

2026 starts with a new film featuring Daisy Ridley (known from We Bury the Dead), which immediately made me think of Chaos Walking. Have you heard of it? This movie is based on the first book in Patrick Ness’s young adult dystopian series, originally titled The Knife of Never Letting Go – a much more compelling title, honestly, with a Dunelike quality. Chaos Walking* takes place in the distant future on a colonized planet where all men can hear each other’s thoughts – constantly. Let’s just say, it’s a pretty chaotic situation.

Back in 2011, before anyone had even seen it, Chaos Walking was predicted to be the next big thing like Twilight. Lionsgate bought the rights to the books and, surprisingly, hired Charlie Kaufman to write the screenplay. That Charlie Kaufman – the mind behind films like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and the director of Synecdoche, New York. He’s known for his incredibly clever and thought-provoking writing, making this a very unexpected – and exciting – choice.

I didn’t realize at the time that even a highly successful screenwriter like Charlie Kaufman sometimes has to take whatever work comes along to make ends meet – just like many other young writers. Without any proof he was particularly passionate about the story, that’s exactly what happened with Chaos Walking. Four other writers also tried their hand at the script, but the final version is credited to Patrick Ness (the author of the original book) and Christopher Ford, who previously worked with director Jon Watts on Spider-Man: Homecoming – a fitting connection, considering Tom Holland also stars in the film. If you’re curious about Kaufman’s original draft, it’s readily available online.


Lionsgate

We’re not discussing Charlie Kaufman’s planned take on Chaos Walking, and it’s doubtful it would have been much different than the film we actually got. Directed by Doug Liman, fresh off the success of 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow (despite later attempts to downplay how good it was), Chaos Walking is a fairly average dystopian sci-fi movie. It features some good acting, but also some truly awful performances, and strangely lacks the detailed world-building you’d expect from a film like this – particularly one adapted from a popular young adult series.

The movie Chaos Walking begins by trying to explain its concept: a character states that the ‘noise’ – which represents unfiltered thoughts – turns people into chaos. (It’s a bit like everyone is constantly broadcasting their thoughts, similar to podcasting.)

The movie Chaos Walking takes place in 2257 on a planet similar to Earth, which humans have colonized and call “New World.” The story focuses on Todd Hewitt – a name you’ll hear a lot, as Tom Holland repeats it constantly throughout the film. Todd struggles to quiet the constant stream of his own thoughts and feelings, which are involuntarily broadcast to everyone around him. He lives in Prentisstown, a small settlement controlled by the menacing Mayor Prentiss, played by Mads Mikkelsen, who seems oddly detached in the role, almost as if he’s channeling Warren Beatty from the movie McCabe & Mrs. Miller.


Lionsgate

Prentisstown is a town with no women, and young Todd was raised there by his two fathers, Ben (Demián Bichir) and Cillian (Kurt Sutter, the creator of Sons of Anarchy, who feels right at home in this setting). The film could have explored the town’s all-male society, but it quickly moves on, instead focusing on Todd as he completes tasks, complains about working in the beet fields (he really dislikes them!), and tries to stay away from the town’s intense preacher, played by David Oyelowo. Unfortunately, Oyelowo’s talent is wasted in this role, which could have been cut entirely, except that it would have removed one of the film’s only characters of color.

When a spaceship crashes close by, Todd finds its only passenger, Viola (Ridley). She was sent to investigate what happened to the first group of colonists after they stopped communicating. Todd has been taught that the native inhabitants, called the Spackle, attacked the town of Prentisstown and killed all the women, and that Prentisstown is the only human settlement on the planet. Both of these beliefs will eventually be shown to be incorrect. For now, though, Todd needs to help Viola escape the mayor and his followers, who plan to kill her and steal the valuable supplies from her ship when it arrives.


Lionsgate

They headed to the colony of Farbranch, hoping to find refuge and reach Viola’s spaceship. Along the way, they met one of the Spackle – a mud-covered, tree-like species that turned out to be harmless – and a clumsy romance started to bloom between them. However, Todd couldn’t stop Viola from hearing his strange thoughts – mostly fixations on her yellow hair and daydreams about being kissed – which, understandably, annoyed her. Unfortunately, the movie struggled to present this mind-reading concept in a way that wasn’t frustrating for the audience to watch.

The town of Farbranch operates by its own unique rules. It’s led by a female mayor – played by Cynthia Erivo – and is home to many women and children. They have a strict law: any man originating from Prentisstown is to be hanged, with one exception. Ray McKinnon (known from Deadwood and Rectify) plays the man who arrived in Farbranch as a boy and is spared this fate – it’s always a pleasure to see him on screen.


Lionsgate

The film Chaos Walking reveals that Prentiss murdered all the women because the men couldn’t bear a society where women could access their thoughts, while their own access to women’s thoughts remained blocked. This premise, a world of uncontrolled thought broadcasting – including insecurities and desires, both sexual and violent – feels reminiscent of Charlie Kaufman’s work. The story also subtly explores the idea of control, shown through flashbacks of Prentiss acting as a mentor to young Todd, emphasizing the importance of dominating one’s surroundings, even through violence.

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However, Chaos Walking rushes through everything – it doesn’t take the time to develop its world, explore deeper questions, or even thoughtfully consider how gender roles play a part. The movie doesn’t even offer a clear outcome for the main character, Todd, who struggles to control his inner thoughts, despite another character already having mastered it. It misses the chance to explore what it would actually mean to quiet those thoughts, or how society teaches men to hide their emotions. These are compelling concepts that the original books by Ness likely address, but the film doesn’t.

As a huge cinema fan, I always find it fascinating how studios operate. Lionsgate released the first Hunger Games film, and then, a couple of years after Mockingjay Part 2 came out, they finally started working on Chaos Walking. It was pretty obvious they were hoping Chaos Walking would be another Hunger Games – you know, chasing that same success. But honestly, relying on studio execs to make creative choices just to repeat past profits rarely works out. Chaos Walking only earned around $27 million worldwide, despite costing somewhere between $100 and $127 million to make, and predictably, a sequel never materialized. A real bummer, and not exactly a happy new year for that franchise!

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2026-01-02 19:19