We recently suggested that Ava DuVernay would be a great choice to direct the inevitable movie based on the hit musical “Hamilton,” but at this rate, she might be too busy. The filmmaker is already attached to direct “A Wrinkle In Time” for Disney and the fashion drama “The Battle Of Versailles,” not to mention she’s got the OWN series “Queen Sugar” cooking too. But what about “Intelligent Life,” you might ask? Sorry, I’ve got some bad news there…
THR reports DuVernay has been forced to exit “Intelligent Life” over scheduling, and perhaps that isn’t a surprise. Lupita Nyong’o is attached to star in the movie, penned by Colin Trevorrow and his “Jurassic World” collaborator Derek Connolly, that tells the story of a low-level worker at the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs who accidentally makes first contact with a beautiful woman from another world, and risks his job and more when they are threatened from things at home and beyond.
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The original plan was to shoot this summer, but no word yet if DreamWorks is hoping to stick to that, or who they might be looking at to replace DuVernay. It’s a bummer, but let’s hope this one still gets made.
Meanwhile, struggling to get made is MGM/Paramount’s “Death Wish” remake with Bruce Willis slated to star. Originally set to be helmed by Joe Carnahan, he left after some heated creative differences with the studio, and it looks like more of that is rearing its head.
After signing on in March, “Big Bad Wolves” pair Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado have bailed on the redo. And in a Facebook post in Hebrew, that Deadline had translated, the pair lay out exactly what made them leave:
…there were huge differences between our vision and the vision of the studio with the famous roaring lion… we wanted to stay away from the original and problematic (albeit fun to watch) Michael Winner film, and move more towards the spirit of the original novel by Brian Garfield – an excellent minimalist novel that never got the cinematic treatment it deserved. We wanted to follow the vision of the director who originally was set to make it, but ultimately was not allowed to – Sidney Lumet. Lumet wanted to direct a film about a simple man, he even thought of Jack Lemmon for the lead, which experiences a terrible tragedy and then falls to the depths of hell. When we imagined the thriller in our minds we thought Taxi Driver, Falling Down… with a bloodcurdling finale like Sicario.
Unfortunately, the time table for the project did not allow us to make the big changes we wanted to make to the script, and as time passed we realized that we were not going to get what we wanted for this project.
Last night, after long deliberations we finally decided to leave the project.
That’s about as straightforward as you’ll get from anybody about why they left a project. As for MGM/Paramount, they’ve got a Carnahan script in hand, a star lined up, and just want someone to come in and knock it out, with no fuss, no muss. Any suggestions?
