Following up the major financial success that was Baby Driver, earning over $225 million on a mid-$30 million budget, yes, talk of a sequel has been discussed with a script even being completed. However, Edgar Wright jumped to a new original project for his next film: the psychological horror Last Night in Soho starring Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Diana Rigg, and Terence Stamp. While that film is set to arrive this fall, he’s now become attached to another project.
Deadline reports he’s set to direct an adaptation of Simon Stephenson’s forthcoming debut novel Set My Heart to Five, adapted by the author himself. Not arriving on shelves until later this year, the sci-fi story is set in 2054 along the west coast of America and follows an android named Jared who “undergoes an emotional awakening and embarks on a quest to convince humans that he and his kind should be permitted to feel.” There’s also a meta aspect, as the film follows his mission to write a film script to change the world after he becomes introduced to the films of the 1980s and 1990s.
Based on this preview, it sounds a little bit like a Ready Player One adventure in nostalgia meets Spike Jonze levels of emotion, but we imagine Wright will bring his own unique touch. Backed by Working Title Films, Focus Features, and Compete Fiction Pictures, see the official book synopsis below.
Jared does not have friends.
Because friends are a function of feelings.
Therefore friends are just one more human obligation that Jared never has to worry about.But Jared is worrying. Which is worrying. He’s also started watching old films. And inexplicably crying in them. And even his Feelings Wheel (given to him by Dr Glundenstein, who definitely is not a friend) cannot guide him through the emotional minefield he now finds himself in.
Soon his feelings will send him fleeing across the country, pursued by a man who wants to destroy him and driven by an illogical desire to share pathogens with the woman who bamboozles him the most.
And Jared cannot!
Because feelings will ruin your life, especially if you aren’t supposed to have them…
As we await his next film this fall and more details on this new project, while we’re all self-isolating, the director has shared his 100 favorite comedies with Letterboxd, saying, “To get you through these tough times, please enjoy a generous helping of SOME of my favourite screen comedies that I’ve enjoyed over the years. I could easily do another 100 so don’t say ‘Where’s so and so?’. Just sit back and enjoy the movies. Let us know below, which ones you raise a smile. (NB: No, I’m not so immodest to put my own on here. x)”
See his list here.