I know most of you were unaware that there was an auction for the rights to John Wyndham’s classic The Day of the Triffids going on last night, because you were busy watching the baseball playoffs.

For those who missed it, Deadline has the exclusive: Mandate Pictures (Drag Me To Hell, Juno) won the rights package that includes the original 1951 novel, which has been adapted a few times already in various forms. Mandate was bidding for Sam Raimi, who really wants to direct his own version about the alien plant invaders who destroy people, as the 1962 film was a childhood favorite of his.

So with the rights now in Mandate’s stable and Raimi eager to direct, step 2 will be getting a script together that everyone can agree on – and the list of producers already attached to Triffids is long to begin with, including Don Murphy, Susan Montford, Mark Gordon and now Raimi and Rob Tapert.

Hopefully by the time it’s passed through the sieve of producer notes and story ideas, the final draft (and more importantly the film) will still retain some of the creepiness and paranoia that helped make the book timeless.