Following up Wendell & Wild, animation wizard Henry Selick is planning to return to the world of Neil Gaiman with an adaptation of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. “Instead of a child going to this other world with a monstrous mother, it’s a monstrous mother who comes into our world to wreak havoc on a kid’s life,” Selick told Variety, contrasting the film with his previous Gaiman adaptation Coraline. Gaiman’s 2013 novel follows “an unnamed man who returns to his hometown for a funeral and remembers events that began forty years earlier.” Selick is currently shopping the project around, so hopefully we’ll have distribution news soon.
While Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem was recently adapted by Alexander Woo, David Benioff, and D.B. Weiss for the Netflix series, a feature adaptation is now in the works from Zhang Yimou. As reported at the Shanghai International Film Festival, the project is currently in the pre-production stage. Here’s a synopsis of the novel: “Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.”
Emily Blunt will star in Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming UFO feature, scripted by David Koepp and set for a May 15, 2026 release from Universal Pictures, Deadline reports. No plot details have been unveiled yet, but will probably presumably kicking off this year to make the release date, expect much more news soon.
Two icons of Italian cinema, Dario Argento and Franco Nero, will be teaming to star in Paul Raschid’s horror-thriller The Run. Not your typical genre offering, Deadline reports the film will have an interactive element which “will involve the viewer being asked to make high-stakes decisions for the protagonist at various points throughout the story that will affect the direction of the narrative and in some cases, result in early death.” The film is set on “a remote running trail, where a famous fitness influencer’s morning run becomes a race for survival when she is hunted by seemingly motiveless killers. She meets local farmer Matteo along the way and the viewer’s choices determine whether they live or die.” While there are no details on what platform the film may appear, the producers compare the audience choice akin to Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch, so expect a streamer to snatch it up.
Fire Will Come and Mimosas director Óliver Laxe is soon wrapping his untitled next feature, Cineuropa reports. Co-written with Santiago Fillol and starring Sergi López, the film follows a man (López) and his son (Bruno Núñez) who “arrive at a rave in the middle of the arid and ghostly mountains of southern Morocco. They are looking for their respective daughter and sister, who disappeared months ago at one of these raging parties. Driven by fate, they decide to follow a group of ‘ravers’ in search of one last party to be held in the desert, in the hope that she will be there.”
With his latest feature Red Island set for an August release in the U.S., Robin Campillo is now shooting his next film Enzo. Cineuropa reports Campillo will be taking over the project from Laurent Cantet, who unexpectedly passed away in April as was a close friend with Campillo. Eloy Pohu and Maksym Slivinskyi star in the film, supported by Pierfrancesco Favino, but no plot details have been unveiled yet.
IONCINEMA reports Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu has set his next feature with the psychological thriller La Saint-André des loups. The Romania-France co-production, set to begin shooting next spring, will be set against the backdrop of 1940s Communist and Nazi-occupied Romania. No additional plot details have been unveiled yet.
In small but exciting updates, Peter Jackson confirmed he’s still working on his Aventures of Tintin movie and Kenneth Lonergan is working on his fourth feature.
We’ll save the worst idea for last: Robert Pattinson will produce and potentially star in a remake of Possession from Smile director Parker Finn, THR reports. The 1981 original, directed by Andrzej Zulawski, stars Sam Neill and Isabella Adjani and follows a marriage that spiral out of control and, well, gets much stranger from there.