A year ago, Joseph Kosinski was a journeyman filmmaker with a promising career that still felt unfulfilled. A year from now, he could be one of the business’ signature players. The “Top Gun: Maverick” director is reportedly signed on to helm “Chariot,” an adaptation of a graphic novel from indie publisher AWA Studios, for Warner Bros. Pictures.
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The executive producer is Zach Studin, the newly minted president of AWA’s budding film and TV operations. Kosinski will co-produce alongside Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen of 21 Laps Entertainment (“Arrival,” “Stranger Things”). The script will be provided by Julian Meiojas, a veteran TV writer known mostly for his work on “The Flash” and “Raised by Wolves.” Meiojas also recently landed a deal to adapt “DNA,” his own series of sci-fi novellas, for Amazon Studios.
“Chariot” is a cyberpunk “Knight Rider” riff about a sentient high-tech sports car from the Cold War era and the down-on-his-luck ex-con who discovers it. Some reports suggest the movie was pitched as a cross between “True Romance” and “The Matrix.”
Whatever the inspiration, the project appears to be tailor-made for Kosinski, who started his career bringing similarly tech-noirish material to life. The graphic novel’s artwork isn’t too far afield from the design of “Tron: Legacy,” Kosinski’s oft-maligned 2010 feature debut. His 2013 follow-up “Oblivion” was conceived as a graphic novel before making it into a film. Although neither of those movies were particularly beloved, they have their cult followings, and Kosinski has always been happy to play in the sci-fi sandbox. If his suddenly busy schedule turns out a hit or two (the success of “Top Gun: Maverick,” at least, seems certain), he’ll surely get more opportunities to build on those interests. Kosinski is currently in post-production on Netflix’s “Escape to Spiderhead,” a dystopian George Saunders adaptation written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (“Deadpool,” “Zombieland’).