It’s been six years since Kathryn Bigelow directed her last film, “Detroit.” Last month, I reported that the Oscar-winning filmmaker was going to direct “Aurora,” for Netflix, in “early 2024.”
Netflix boss Scott Stuber is now telling Collider that it’s not just “Aurora,” but several projects that the streaming giant is working with Bigelow on:
We're really pushing Kathryn Bigelow's next movie and working with her on a couple of things. She’s one of the greats, and we all need another Kathryn Bigelow movie. We need it so badly. So we're trying. We've got multiple pots on the stove for her because she's one of my…I idolize her, and she's one of the coolest, greatest artists there is, so it would be a dream come true to be able to make a movie with her.
“Aurora” is an adaptation of screenwriter David Koepp’s novel of the same name. Per the synopsis, the film “follows characters who are coping with the collapse of the social order, set against a catastrophic worldwide power crisis.”
The novel is set in Aurora, Illinois, where a mother and her teenage son are forced to fend for themselves in the wake of a massive power outage. The mother’s estranged brother, a Silicon Valley CEO, has a bunker in the desert, and their reunion leads to reckonings on a global and personal scale.
Bigelow’s lengthy absence has been noticed. A person I spoke to a few weeks back told me that Bigelow purposely decided to take time off from the film world after she was “devastated” by the negative reactions “Detroit” had received upon release.
Bigelow is the maverick filmmaker of such films as “The Hurt Locker,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” Near Dark,” “Point Break,” and the highly underrated “Strange Days.” She was one of the hottest filmmakers in the aughts, having directed two Best Picture nominees, including a winner.
As mentioned, “Detroit” was her last film and it garnered a mixed reception when it was released back in 2017. I liked most of that film, but the last third of that movie just didn’t work for me. Nevertheless, it was unfairly maligned by critics.
The film is set to shoot in fall 2027. The idea would be to release it in December 2028, timed to Trump's exit from office. Oh, and it's now Warner Bros.' indie label, Clockwork, that's backing the film.