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WIRE Buzz: Jamie Lee Curtis to direct eco-horror film. Plus, a Star Trek: Voyager reunion
Following the success of 2018's Halloween reboot, Jamie Lee Curtis has signed a first-look deal with Blumhouse, which produced the feature, SYFY WIRE has confirmed. The three-year partnership (struck in conjunction with Curtis' production company, Comet Pictures) involves the development of movie and TV projects.
First up on the docket is Mother Nature, an "eco-horror film" revolving around the topic of climate change. Curtis will make her directorial debut with the flick and is writing the screenplay with Comet's head of development, Russell Goldman.
"I’m 61 and my motto now is: ‘If not now, when, if not me, who?' I’m excited to have a creative home to explore my own ideas and others. Jason [Blum] and his team have made me feel welcome. Comet is ready to bring these stories to screen life,” the actress said in a statement.
"Jamie is a force of nature and was a real partner on Halloween. So, it’s both an honor and incredibly apt that she’s making her first feature film as a director with Mother Nature,” added Jason Blum, Blumhouse CEO and founder.
Curtis is reprising Laurie Strode for the next two Blumhouse-produced Halloween movies from director David Gordon Green: Halloween Kills (Oct. 16, 2020) and Halloween Ends (Oct. 15, 2021).
Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley is making the jump to live action with a big-screen adaptation of Malamander for Sony, writes The Hollywood Reporter. The movie will be based on Thomas Taylor's 2019 kids' book of the same name, which featured illustrations by Tom Booth.
Malamander takes place in Eerie-on-Sea, a seaside town shrouded in mist and populated by colorful characters, both benign and nefarious. The action kicks off when Herbert Lemon (head of lost and found at the Grand Nautilus Hotel) teams up with Violet Parma to find the latter's missing parents. Pursued by a hook-handed man, the duo also get caught up in a local legend about a part-fish, part-human monster (the being that gives the book its title), whose egg is said to make dreams come true.
Cooley left Pixar in mid-March after working at the acclaimed animation studio for almost two decades, beginning with 2004's The Incredibles.
Gargantis, the second book in Taylor's budding "Eerie-on-Sea" series, was published May 7.
Toy Story 4 made over $1 billion at the global box office last summer and went on to win Best Animated Feature at the 92nd Academy Awards earlier this year.
Late last month, Cooley was tapped to direct an animated Transformers prequel film.
One thing that's happened in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic is that it's temporarily freed up actors to revisit some of their most beloved projects via virtual reunions. The latest digital gathering will reunite the cast of Star Trek: Voyager on May 26 at 8 p.m. EST.
Kate Mulgrew (Kathryn Janeway), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), Roxann Dawson (B’Elanna Torres), Robert Beltran (Chakotay), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), and Garrett Wang (Harry Kim) are coming together to celebrate the show's 25th anniversary and raise money for The Actors Fund.
"This reunion will be both gratifying and novel: we are all alive, we are all congenial, and we are all still actors!" said Mulgrew in a statement.
The event, co-hosted by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, will be held on the Stars In The House YouTube channel.
Created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor, Voyager ran for a total of 172 episodes across seven seasons on UPN between 1995 and 2001.
