Ben Mezrich's new novel being adapted for screen

A movie based on author Ben Mezrich's upcoming book "Woolly: The True Story of the De-Extinction of One of History's Most Iconic Creatures" will see the light of the day courtesy Fox Studio and Temple Hill production company.

The production houses have acquired movie rights to Mezrich's book, which is set to be published in the fall of next year by Simon & Schuster's Atria Books, reports variety.com.

The story of the book follows a geneticist and a team of scientists attempting to bring back the woolly mammoth from extinction.

Geneticist George Church's lab at Harvard University successfully copied genes from frozen woolly mammoths last year and added them into the genome of an Asian elephant. It was the first time that woolly mammoth genes have been functional since the species went extinct about 4,000 years ago.

This is not the first time that the author's book is being adapted for the screen.

Mezrich's book "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal" served as the basis for the 2010 film "The Social Network". His book "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions" was adapted into "21."

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