"Wackness" director Jonathan Levine will direct "Legend," a movie based on a young-adult novel that that will be published in November, CBS Films said Thursday.
The studio is counting on the movie to become the first of three.
Marie Lu wrote the novel, which is set in Los Angeles more than 100 years from now. 
In the story, LA is more messed-up than it is now: the oceans have risen and North America is split into two warring nations. On top of that, there are totalitarian leaders. And the totalitarians hire a teenage prodigy to hunt down a Robin Hood figure.
Also read: CBS Films Acquires Rights to Futuristic Thriller 'Legend'
The movie is sort of "Blade Runner" meets "Ender's Game" meets "Robin Hood." "Twilight" producers Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey provide an extra splash of franchise potential.
And there's plenty of that potential: Lu is already at work on the second installation of the trilogy. CBS Films scooped up rights to all three of the books this past February.
Penguin has set a Nov. 29 release date for the young adult novel, and has ordered an especially large printing.
Levine's "50/50," starring Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anna Kendrick, opens in September. "Warm Bodies," a zombie movie he wrote and is directing, is in preproduction now.
CBS Films expects to release "Legend" in late 2012 or early 2013.
Levine is repped by CAA, the Nervik Company and the law firm Weissmann Wolff Bergman Coleman Grodin & Evall LLP.
