While people tend to have immediate opinions about Max Landis, there’s a reason he continues to be one of the busiest screenwriters around. As anyone who has heard him talk knows, his brain is bursting with ideas, and he knows not only how to enthusiastically talk about them, but also get it on page. It’s that combination of talent that will get you into studio doors, get gigs, or in this case, land Bradley Cooper.
Yep, THR reports that the actor has signed up to star in Landis’ "Deeper." As the title suggests, it’s an underwater tale, that follows a man on a deep-sea dive who winds up discovering something mysterious (probably supernatural, I’m guessing) inside a trench. And my personal interest in this just shot up a notch as Kornel Mundruczo, the director behind the excellent "White God," will be helming this one. Awesome, and even more, when we talked with Landis earlier this month, he told us that "Deeper" was "the best thing I’ve ever written."
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And oh, remember what I said about Landis bursting with ideas? In that same interview, he shared that’s already working on a script that’s a "spiritual sequel" to "Deeper" called "Higher."
"[It’s] like a two-person play — it all takes place in a barn and it’s about a woman. The whole script is 75 pages of one scene and then 25 pages of going up into outer space. But for the whole script, it’s just a lawyer talking to a woman who’s shirtless and covered in writing and equations and who’s building what appears to be a spaceship. At first it seems like the guy’s just a mean lawyer or a government agent who’s been sent to shut down what she’s doing. And then the scene I’m writing right now, page 25 — I’m so excited— shows her going back and forth with this lawyer, and less and less of the things she’s saying are making sense," he said.
"It’s clear that she’s made a tiny nuclear reactor — she’s a genius and it’s clear she wants to go into orbit for reasons we don’t fully understand," Landis continued. "But she’s also saying weird things about the stars going out, and she says her daughter is 16 while he says her daughter is 9. She goes into this very long rant, and it ends with him going, ‘Are you sure what you remember is accurate to reality?’ And she says, ‘Yes. Yes, stop bullying me.’ And he goes, ‘Who am I?’ And she goes, ‘I don’t know.’ He goes, ‘Who am I? Look at me.’ And she realizes it’s her fucking husband. She’s having a schizophrenic break. So that’s the end of the first act."
Gotta hand it to him, Landis can really sell it. And indeed, Bold, Oddlot, Open Road, Fox Searchlight and Paramount are all looking to buy "Deeper."