- Mortal Engines Official Trailer 2018 Mortal Engines is an upcoming post-apocalyptic adventure film directed by Christian Rivers and with the screenplay written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson. The film is scheduled to be released in theaters on December 14, 2018. It is based on the novel of the same name by Philip Reeve. Mortal Engines is the first of four novels in Philip Reeve's quartet of the same name. The book focuses on a futuristic, steampunk version of London, now a giant machine striving to survive on a world running out of resources. The book has won a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Award. The book is set in a post-apocalyptic world, ravaged by a "Sixty Minute War", which caused massive geological upheaval. To escape the earthquakes, volcanoes, and other instabilities, a Nomad leader called Nikola Quercus (known as god Nicholas Quirke by the time of the book) installed huge engines and whee...