Deadline reports that Robbie Pickering (Natural Selection) has been signed by Sony to direct The Kitchen Sink from writer Oren Uziel. The script appeared on the 2010 edition of the Black List, a yearly master list of the industry’s best unproduced screenplays, and at one point Jonah Hill was in talks to make it his debut as a feature director but Sony has gone with Pickering instead. The Kitchen Sink follows a high school zombie, vampire, and human as they team together to fight off an alien invasion of their town. I’m surprised a werewolf didn’t get tossed in there just for sh*ts and giggles.
Uziel has been keeping himself busy since making the Black List by helping director Kevin Tancharoen reboot the Mortal Kombat franchise; first came the Mortal Kombat: Rebirth short that premiered on the internet back in 2010 which took a more gritty and somewhat realistic tone, and then came the 9 episode Mortal Kombat: Legacy anthology that ran on the Machinima YouTube channel last year. New Line was impressed enough with both of these projects to bring both Tancharoen and Uziel on board for its upcoming Mortal Kombat feature film.
And to be honest, Uziel’s work with Mortal Kombat is what is interesting me; The Kitchen Sink sounds like a mish mash of popular genre trends over the past few years put together for the hell of it as opposed to something organic. Yes, it made the Black List and I’m sure Uziel had better intentions than that, but to me it feels like a ridiculous pitch made just because it would sell to studios. As for Pickering, we were big fans of his SXSW audience award winner and you can read that review here.
Does The Kitchen Sink sound appealing to you?