Dan Gilroy is not the type of filmmaker to tackle the same story more than once. With years of scripts under his belt, it’s been over the past few years with his directorial outings that Gilroy has established himself as one of the most surprising filmmakers around. Going from the bleak, creepy “Nightcrawler” to the legal drama, “Roman J. Israel, Esq” to the art thriller “Velvet Buzzsaw” shows Gilroy is willing to take chances. And his next feature, “Faster, Cheaper, Better” is yet another example of Gilroy stepping into uncharted territory as a director.
According to Deadline, Gilroy is currently looking for a studio to help develop his next feature, “Faster, Cheaper, Better,” which tackles the growing prevalence of automation and AI in the American workforce. ‘Faster’ spans two decades as the film follows multiple characters’ stories, including a union foreman, a young entrepreneur, an indoor farm executive, and a tech billionaire, who find all their lives thrown into chaos by the introduction of automation and artificial intelligence.
In addition to directing, Gilroy also penned the script for the new feature. The filmmaker, of course, landed an Oscar nomination for the aforementioned “Nightcrawler.”
Speaking to Deadline, the filmmaker explained why he was drawn to this new story:
“I’ve always been interested in machines and technology and it fairly recently how automation and AI are just profoundly transforming the workplace. For example, right now at this moment, there are fully automated factories around the world where robots are literally making robots to replace people in an absolutely endless variety of jobs. Not just manufacturing and production jobs. I realized when I started doing the research that this is just the beginning of a transformational era we are about to enter into, where automation and AI are really the employment equivalent of climate change. And how utterly unprepared we are as people, and as a world, for what is coming.”
Gilroy added that the focus on the tech side of the workforce, but the film tells “a very human story with drama, suspense and humor and spectacle.”
Though a production start date has not been set, Gilroy expects “Faster, Cheaper, Better” to be his next feature and he’s reportedly in the midst of casting the film now.
