I'm having a little trouble getting past the opening line of this Variety report, which says in the most corporate-ese way imaginable that Disney is "on the hunt for potential franchises that can benefit all of the company's divisions." It's depressing to be reporting on the spark of a movie idea, barely in existence, and already discussing it as a product to be merchandised, but when you're tailing about Disney, the people who practically invented selling storytelling for billions of dollars, I suppose it's only fair. Anyway, the Variety report in question says that Max Landis, the up-and-coming screenwriter behind the soon-to-be-released Chronicle, is now planning an untitled space adventure with Disney.
As with most pitches, the details are still sketchy; all we know is that the film follows "the emotional journey of a brother and sister as they undertake an epic adventure." This comes just after Disney decided to go along with another untitled action adventure, this one about extreme sports, and you can't help but see their ideas for theme park rides forming in their heads. Once we see Chronicle, which opens February 3, we may get a better sense of what Landis has to offer as a screenwriter-- he might not be pitching the most original ideas, but Hollywood could always use someone who's good at writing old-fashioned action-adventures, so why not this guy? It might help that he's the son of Blues Brothers director John Landis-- you might cry nepotism, but I'm hoping it's an ingrown sense of storytelling he's had since birth.
