Despite its good reviews, and inclusion on many Best of 2018 lists, filmmaker Steve McQueen’s latest work, “Widows,” probably wasn’t the type of film many fans had hoped the “12 Years a Slave” helmer would direct. Firmly in the thriller, heist genres, “Widows” was good fun, but lacked the punch that many hoped McQueen would bring to it. Well, for his next film, it appears that the director might earn back those fans that found “Widows” far more mainstream than they would have liked.
IndieWire is reporting that McQueen will next helm a documentary, titled “The Occupied City.” His first attempt at feature-length non-fiction storytelling, the director’s film will document the life and times of those living in Amsterdam during World War II. The film gets its inspiration from the book “Atlas Of An Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945,” written by McQueen’s wife Bianca Stigter, who herself is a Dutch writer, historian, and filmmaker.
We’re hoping McQueen has a better experience making a documentary than he did working on a now-scrapped TV series for HBO, titled “Codes of Conduct.” After that series was shelved, the filmmaker made no effort to shield his disappointment, as he has been very forthright with his frustration over the current state of Peak TV. That being said, we’re thinking that McQueen can have better luck on the documentary side of Hollywood.
There’s no release date planned for “The Occupied City,” but with this announcement, it would appear that film fans won’t have an extended wait between McQueen projects, as before where the director had a five-year gap between the two aforementioned films, “12 Years a Slave” and “Widows.”