Now that “The Bikeriders” is behind him, having arrived in theaters almost 10 months after it premiered at last year’s Telluride Film Festival, Jeff Nichols has seemingly set up his next film.
Nichols is gearing up to shoot “Land of Opportunity” which I had previously reported had Brad Pitt in talks to star. At the time, Pitt had only read the script, and his participation was still not official. Production List now has a May 2025 shoot set up for the film in Arkansas.
In the early 2010s, Nichols sold a script to HBO for the pilot episode of a TV series he wrote, it was called “Land of Opportunity.” It’s said to be a “dystopian story” set in Arkansas, about a new Great Depression where oil has run out and the dollar has collapsed. However, HBO chose not to go ahead with the project and instead Nichols has now turned it into a feature length film.
This is the project that Nichols has been teasing for well over a year now. He couldn’t get it off the ground, but Pitt’s sudden participation must have surely helped in finally getting it moving.
In a recent interview, Nichols was hinting that this “mysterious” sci-fi movie would be up next for him. The film had been originally announced in 2021, with Paramount backing it.
I’d love for it [the sci-fi film] to be my next film. It says everything I want to say about humanity and the universe. It’s a big film. It’s got a big scope to it and a big heart to it. Believe it or not, it’s a film with aliens in it. But it takes place in Arkansas, and it feels like a movie made by the guy who made Mud, and it just happens to have aliens in it.
Last year, I had reported that Nichols’ film was further along in development than originally thought. So much so that an Arkansas-set shoot was planned for the fall. Sadly, the strikes occurred soon after that.
Meanwhile, with Quentin Tarantino having canceled “The Movie Critic,” Pitt’s schedule seems to have freed up some space. He just needs to complete his participation in Joseph Kosinski’s “F1,” which has been shooting for well over a year and should be wrapping things up soon, if it hasn’t already.
Nichols is the director of “Shotgun Stories,” “Take Shelter,” “Mud,” and “Loving,” and he surely deserves the opportunity to make or direct anything he pleases. He’s delved in the sci-fi genre once in his carer— 2017’s “Midnight Special” was a pure and total Spielberg-inspired exercise.