Way back in 2008, J.J. Abrams teamed up with Universal to produce an earthquake movie — not a remake of the 1974 Charlton Heston flick — and tasked the original "The Omen" writer David Seltzer to pen the script. And then….that was pretty much the last we heard of it. But now a new writer is on board and it's not exactly the most obvious name you would think of for a blockbuster.
Oscar-winning "Milk" writer Dustin Lance Black has been given the gig to write the movie, and being a Bad Robot production, there are as usual absolutely zero details at the moment. But Universal at one time had "Earthquake: The Big One," an attraction at their Orlando theme park in which visitors got the chance to feel what it was like in an 8.3 magnitude earthquake. The ride had it's fair share of problems and wound up closing in 2007…could this be the way to revive it? Guess we'll soon see. But perhaps Black isn't that much of an odd choice — after all, he is adapting the Dark Horse comic "3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man," for Warner Bros. with plans to direct, and he's already done some homework. "I went and talked to Roland Emmerich about CGI, and Bryan Singer walked me through his process on 'Jack and the Giant Killer,' how the stunts were done," Black told us earlier this year. "It's been exciting to educate myself." So perhaps this is a good way to get his feet wet with a big movie first.
So, we'll see how this goes, but at least it's a different voice and approach than the usual Kurtzman/Orci types of Hollywood who usually tackle this kind of stuff. [Deadline]
