After a brief time where it seems he lost his moviemaking mojo, Kevin Smith is back and working at a more furious pace than ever. Rather like a hockey jersey festooned James Franco, Smith has several irons in the fire at once with podcasts, TV shows and books, amounting to a mini-media empire. Now, he seems ready to reclaim his director’s chair: This fall he’ll unveil his horror project "Tusk." As he told a Comic-Con panel this weekend, the movie is the first installment of a trilogy.
Indeed, the recently announced "Yoga Hosers" and "Moose Jaws" will make up what Smith calls the "True North Trilogy." There are not many plot details at the moment for either, but Smith did describe the latter picture as " ‘Jaws‘ with a moose." And via Twitter, he announced pre-production was already beginning on "Yoga Hosers," and yes, it will be strange….
Spent the day in the YOGA HOSERS production office! Pre-pro has begun! Within a month, we start making the weirdest flick I’ve ever made…
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) July 29, 2014
Meanwhile, if you don’t know the name Morten Tyldum, you’ll likely hear it a lot this fall. He’s the director behind the big awards contender "The Imitation Game," and as you might expect, studios have come calling. Warner Bros. has tapped him to direct "Chain Of Events," based on the book by Frederick T. Olsson, which is described as a cross between "World War Z" and "The Da Vinci Code." Here’s the Amazon synopsis:
William Sandberg, once a well-respected military cryptologist pursuing cutting-edge research, is a ruined man. His career is in shambles, his marriage is over, and he’s succumbed to a dark depression.
But William’s talents haven’t gone unnoticed. A nameless, top-secret organization abducts him and tasks him with a daunting mission: decode a message that will reveal the disastrous prophecies hidden in our DNA before it is too late.
Meanwhile, William’s ex-wife Christina is haunted by his absence and suspects there is more to his disappearance than just the reclusive impulse of a depressed man. Driven by her hunch, she sets out to find him and joins an eclectic cast of characters all drawn to a mysterious chateau in the Alps where the secret organization is plotting something-but is it revenge? Or a rescue mission? What is the organization hiding? What does the code have to do with the potent virus suddenly spreading around the world? And can William uncover the truth before it’s too late?
A thrilling novel about humanity on the verge of crisis, taking readers from the streets of Berlin and Stockholm to a chateau in the Alps, Chain of Events explodes and then reconfigures the ties that bind us to one another: marriage, politics, and our DNA.
Mark L. Smith ("Vacancy," "The Hole") is penning the script, and a producer has yet to be announced. This will likely be one of many projects likely to come Tyldum’s way in the next few months. [Flickering Myth/Variety]