It has been four years since Brian De Palma‘s last film, the cheesy potboiler "Passion" starring Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace, and while he’s been the subject of a documentary ("De Palma" directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow), there hasn’t been much news on the feature front. He was developing "Happy Valley," a film about legendary football coach Joe Paterno with Al Pacino slated to star, but that project was halted by HBO last year. However, the filmmaker has another movie brewing and it sounds, well, De Palma-esque.
Variety reports that the filmmaker will helm the action thriller "Lights Out." Penned by Lamont Magee and Jeff W. Byrd, Xavier Gens ("Frontier(s)," "Hitman") was previously set to direct this one about a blind Chinese woman, with other heightened senses, who sets to expose a top-secret assassination program. Sounds like the kind of B-movie material De Palma could really put his mark on.
Pre-production is underway, and the hunt is one for an A-list Chinese actress to take the lead role. So maybe a new De Palma movie, optimistically, by the end of 2016? Fingers crossed.