We’ve written quite a number of articles about the resurgence of disaster films here on TG Daily. Yes, there are at least a few new ones in the works these days, with more to come.
For example, Paul Walker is up to star in a film about people stuck in a burning building, a la The Towering Inferno, and now there’s two earthquake films in development.
What’s especially interesting about the upcoming movies is that JJ Abrams is in charge of one, which makes it about the two billionth project he’s currently got in the works, and Ridley Scott also has a disaster flick in the works as well. Okay, first things first…
Deadline reports that Abrams is involved with a project tentatively dubbed Earthquake, yet it isn’t a remake of the legendary 1974 disaster film of the same name.
Dustin Lance Black, who wrote Milk and J. Edgar, is penning the screenplay. Unfortunately, we won’t know for a while whether it’s going to be like the classic disaster films where there are multiple characters caught up in the chaotic melee, or if it will depict the story of a smaller group of people.
The other earthquake film in the works is San Andreas 3D, which also has an Abrams connection. As Vulture tells us, it’s being written by Carlton Cuse, who served as an executive producer on Lost.
As far as the Ridley Scott project, Ridley’s remaking a British “mockumentary” titled The Day Britain Stopped. As reports tell us, this was a TV movie from 2003 that covers a fake traffic disaster.
The way this project is being described, well, it sounds a little bit like an eighties TV movie called Special Bulletin, directed by Ed Zwick (Thirty Something) which actually fooled people into thinking it was a real incident, much like Orson Welles with War of the Worlds.
If Scott’s going to make this as a movie, it would be much harder to pull off of course, but perhaps people will think it’s based on a real event that happened. Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List, Moneyball) is writing the script.
