Alex Siskin, the producer of “The Equalizer,’’ has acquired film rights to Matthew Pearl’s historical thriller “The Technologists,’’ according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Reporter says Siskin discovered Pearl’s novel during the making of “The Equalizer,’’ which was filmed in Massachusetts in 2013, and the book was recommended to him by his attorney, Ben Reder. (Pearl and Reder are both Harvard alums.) Pearl’s best-selling novel is set in 1868 and focuses on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It won the 2013 Massachusetts Book Award for fiction.