Movies
Idris Elba Starring in ‘Deeper’, a Horror Take on ‘The Abyss’
Prometheus‘ Idris Elba is in negotiations to star in MGM’s supernatural sci-fi thriller Deeper, reports Heat Vision.
Baltasar Kormakur, the filmmaker behind survival dramas Everest and Adrift, is sitting behind the camera for the feature, which has a script written by Max Landis (Bright, Victor Frankenstein, Chronicle).
Deeper is supernatural thriller that centers on a disgraced astronaut, to be played by Elba, who is on a deep-sea dive exploring a newly discovered trench but soon finds himself confronted by a sinister and dangerous force.
The tone has been described as being similar to recent hits Gravity and The Martian.
The site recounts the history: MGM paid seven figures to acquire the script in 20126 from the high-priced scribe Landis. The project also had Bradley Cooper and Gal Gadot attached to star and Kornel Mundruczo, the Hungarian director behind White God, attached to direct. However, one by one the players fell off and MGM was forced to decide whether to let it go or rebuild. It chose the latter.
David Goyer, Kevin Turen, Russell Ackerman, John Schoenfelder and Landis are producing the project.
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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