After helming the body-horror pic “Together” released by NEON, director Michael Shanks is teaming up with Adam McKay for a mysterious untitled sci-fi comedy that was just picked up by Sony Pictures.
The project announcement, hailing from The Hollywood Reporter, states that McKay is set to direct, with Shanks handling the script, and Todd Schulman producing via Hyperobject Industries (McKay and Schulman’s production banner). Another key producer on the film is Andrew Mittman (through 1.21 Pictures), who isn’t a stranger to the world of genre, being an exec producer on Netflix’s hit series “Wednesday” and having been involved in the development of Tim Burton’s upcoming remake of “Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman” for WB.
However, concrete plot/character details on this new movie are being kept under lock and key for the time being. So, we’ll just have to be patient for further information.
This shouldn’t be an entirely shocking link-up as McKay produced Shanks’ next feature, “Hotel, Hotel, Hotel, Hotel” at A24, after Shanks’ script for the project landed on the 2021 Black List (a collection of exceptional unproduced scripts). As expected, McKay is also producing that sci-fi thriller starring Daniel Kaluuya (“Nope”) with Schulman via Hyperobject.
We haven’t seen McKay direct a feature film since the 2021 disaster comedy “Don’t Look Up,” which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence (it also featured sci-fi comedic elements with a group of scientists trying to warn the globe of the world’s end). Another film project McKay was going to direct as a film is “Bad Blood” about entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, who ended up going to prison for mass fraud, which once had Laurence attached to play Holmes before her exit, and the project is now lingering in limbo.
You might remember that earlier in the week, McKay’s Hyperoject Industries announced plans to develop a TV series project about the Julie K. Brown (Miami Herald journalist) investigations into multiple Jeffrey Epstein cases, with Oscar-winner Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”) set to play Brown in the gestating show based on the novel “Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story” (penend by Brown). They’re also producing Panos Cosmatos‘ (“Mandy”) ’80s-set vampire thriller “Flesh of the Gods,” which has been struggling to find financing, according to cast member Kristen Stewart (Oscar Issac and Elizabeth Olsen were also attached to star).
What looks like a perfect pairing, we’ll have to wait a little longer to learn more about the film that will be helmed by Adam McKay, and how exactly Shanks’ script fits into the sci-fi genre (maybe it’ll be focused on aliens or new technology?).
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