Filmmaker Gore Verbinski is coming back with a vengeance. After helming the massively popular Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy with a swell mix of elegance and goofiness, the director took his talents to the animated world with the fantastic Rango. Most recently, however, Verbinski helmed the poorly received and very expensive The Lone Ranger. As a fan of the filmmaker I was still eager to see what he would do next, and now Verbinski is lining up his next three projects. He will first helm an untitled paranoid thriller starring Steve Carell, and then plans to shoot the horror thriller A Cure for Wellness and the action comedy Passengers back-to-back. More after the jump.
The folks over at Deadline report that Verbinski has signed on to helm Carell in an untitled paranoid thriller for New Regency, with production scheduled to begin in March. Steve Conrad (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) penned the screenplay, but further plot details are unknown. However, Verbinski is keen on keeping busy, as he plans to follow the thriller up with two more New Regency movies that he will shoot back-to-back. The first is an “elevated horror film” written by Justin Haythe (Revolutionary Road) called A Cure for Wellness, and the second is a large-scale action comedy called Passengers, also written by Conrad.
Wellness marks a return to the horror genre for Verbinski, who directed 2002’s The Ring to great success, setting off a trend of American remakes of Asian horror films. He’s an incredibly versatile filmmaker and one of my personal favorites working today, so it’s exciting to hear that he’ll be very busy in the near future. Additionally, the paranoid thriller will mark another dramatic turn from Carell, who will most certainly be in the Oscar race this year for his haunting, transformative turn in Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher.
