Joe Wright To Direct AI Thriller ‘Alignment’

Deadline is reporting that there was lots of competition, from a various number of directors, to helm the AI thriller “Alignment.” Producers, including Fifth Season, finally settled on Joe Wright to direct the film which has a hot spec script written by Natan Dolan.

The story follows a cutting-edge tech company whose latest AI model begins manipulating global markets and stoking international conflict, a principled board member and an out of his depth software engineer must race to convince their profit-obsessed colleagues to shut down their creation before it triggers a globally catastrophic event.

Last year, Dolan’s spec was acquired by Fifth Season in a heated bidding war. The trade’s sources say the search for a director was “equally intense with half dozen directors in the mix for the job.” Wright’s take eventually won over producers. The project is being fast-tracked into production given how AI has become such a “hot-button” topic.

Wright’s had a peculiar directing career, with his fair share of ups (“Atonement,” “Pride & Prejudice”), in-betweens (“Darkest Hour,” “Anna Karenina”) and downs (“Pan,” “The Woman in the Window”). His last film was his 2021 adaptation of “Cyrano,” starring Peter Dinklage, which garnered positive reviews.

Last year, Wright premiered, to rave reviews, his Mussolini limited series “M – Son Of The Century” at the Venice Film Festival. Although it’s already aired in the UK on Sky Atlantic, still no word on when it’ll get released stateside.