The Things They Carried movie recruits all-star cast: Tom Hardy, Pete Davidson, Stephan James, more

One of the most popular American books about the Vietnam War is becoming a movie, and it has recruited an all-star cast to do so. EW has confirmed that Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road), Pete Davidson (The King of Staten Island), Stephan James (If Beale Street Could Talk), Bill Skarsgard (It), Tye Sheridan (X-Men: Apocalypse), Ashton Sanders (Moonlight), Martin Sensmeier (The Magnificent Seven), Moises Arias (Monos), and Angus Cloud (Euphoria) will play the men of "Alpha Company" in the upcoming adaptation of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Rupert Sanders (Snow White And The Huntsman) is set to direct. Deadline was first to report the news.

First published in 1990, The Things They Carried has since become a staple of assigned reading in American high schools. It is less a novel than a collection of short stories; the first shares the same title as the book and is sometimes anthologized independently. While that story is a realistic description of the things each soldier is carrying into the battle and what they signify, several others in the collection play more with the boundary between fantasy and reality. "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," for instance, tells the surreal story of one of the soldiers flying his girlfriend in to Vietnam to help the troops with domestic tasks, only for her to eventually assimilate into Vietnamese culture and disappear into the jungle with a necklace of human tongues. It's unknown yet how many or which stories will be adapted in the film.

The Things They Carried is being produced by Hardy's Hardy Son & Baker outfit alongside MJZ.

“Things They Carried is a timeless tale about the human heart. It’s about fear and courage and friendship. It’s about growing up, about holding oneself together in the face of terrible events…or not holding oneself together at all. It’s about death. And how to live on in the aftermath of death. It’s about the weight of the things we all carry," MJZ's David Zander (Spring Breakers) said in a statement. "Taught to an entire generation of American high school and university students, The Things They Carried has attained its stature precisely because it’s about so much more than the war — in the same way that To Kill A Mockingbird is about so much more than life in the Jim Crow South, or The Great Gatsby is about so much more than the Roaring Twenties. The handful of books that become rites of passage in the American educational system are chosen because they speak to universal questions, and The Things They Carried stands shoulder to shoulder with them. I am so thankful to Tim for entrusting me to bring this important work to the screen.”

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly’s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more

Related content:

• Meryl Streep, Timothee Chalamet, Ariana Grande, and many more stars board Adam McKay's Netflix film
• Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen, Dianne Wiest discuss their new Steven Soderbergh film Let Them All Talk
• Naomie Harris reuniting with Moonlight co-star Mahershala Ali for Apple's Swan Song