Movies
‘Ultra’ Marathon Runner Involved in a Deadly Race
Tristar Pictures has preemptively acquired Ultra, a survival thriller spec script by Colin Bannon, reports Deadline, which names Squid Games for the recent appetite for survival projects and hilariously notes that Bannon wrote this before the Netflix series (L.O.L.).
Digressing, the story details are slim, but very cool. Apparently, the protagonist is an ultramarathon runner involved in a deadly race. I guess you can say it’s Squid Games-ish, but I’d say this sounds more like Battle Royale or The Most Dangerous Game, which was also recently remade. The indie The Human Race also tackled this very concept well with a reality show theme.
Jake Scott is directing Ultra with plans to go into production by the middle of next year.
Sugar 23’s Sukee Chew is producing. More soon.
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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