Kalinda Vazquez, co-executive producer of Fear the Walking Dead, is teaming with JJ Abram’s Bad Robot to pen an original Trek movie script for Paramount.

No word yet on the story or if any existing Trek-lore characters will feature, but Vazquez is well-credentialed having recently written a Trek Short featuring Captain Pike, as well as an episode of Discovery set in the mirror universe.

If the script gets the green light it would make Vazquez the first woman in history to write a feature-length Trek film. Paramount has a number of other Trek-franchise properties in development, although widely reported projects from Quentin Tarantino and Noah Hawley have cooled in recent months.

Actor and filmmaker Lindsay Bennett-Thompson – whose shorts Puppy and Enter Nirvana did well on the festival circuit – has launched her fourth short film File Not Found on Kickstarter.

The sci-fi horror film’s synopsis is:

Set in 2035, Jenny lives an idyllic life with her spiritualistic partner Maggie. When modern technology is disrupted, Jenny comes face to face with the horror that she has been hiding from.

Writer/Director Lindsay Bennett-Thompson said, “I wanted to make something which married modern technology and classic horror. Our contemporary society relies so heavily on technology I wanted to push the boundaries of how that can shape our perception of reality. How far will we go to escape or influence the way we experience the world and is our reliance on contemporary science hiding us from truth? I was inspired by the works of Charlie Brooker and his representation of a dystopian future – which never feels too far removed from our own – and the more traditional psychological horror of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, representing an inescapable yet illogical consuming force. Both characters in the story are trying to escape reality in their own way but some demons will always be waiting.”

The short is being produced by STARBURST’s James L. Perkins and is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. You can find out more about Lindsay by heading over to www.lindsaybennett.net.

Hugh Grant has been the latest name attached to the Dungeons and Dragons movie. The actor became a household name thanks to his roles in romantic comedies but is now better known for over-the-top roles such as the villain in Paddington 2.

The project has a very interesting cast so far. Bridgerton star Rege-Jean Page, Resident Evil icon Michelle Rodriguez, Star Trek’s Chris Pine and Detective Pikachu’s Justice Smith. Fans have speculated that this may well be an ‘adventuring party’, the traditional story format for a game of Dungeons and Dragons. This means one character will be a some sort of rogue, another a wizard, someone will have healing powers and so on.

Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have been attached to direct. Their credits include Game Night and Spider Man: Homecoming.  The movie is expected to come out in May 2022. A persistent rumour is that the plot will revolve around a heist for a legendary artifact, the gruesome Eye of Vecna, a powerful relic that was once part of a god of death.

Paramount will be working with eOne, the company that handles this sort of thing for toy and game manufacturer Hasbro, the current owners of Dungeons and Dragons. Wizards of the Coast, the company responsible for D&D was recently elevated to the position of a division within Hasbro. The game’s popularity has lead to record profits and Wizards are now responsible for the companies digital products.

The feature has been in development for a very long time and they have been multiple attempts to bring the vast and complicated world of Dungeons and Dragons to the silver screen since the 80s. It’s creator, Gary Gygax, famously failed to get a movie made and the least said about 2000’s low budget fantasy movie of the same name the better.

The tabletop game has enjoyed a huge revival in recent years thanks to shows such as Critical Role, Questing Time and High Rollers, as well as the game’s Fifth Edition, which is a far more accessible and inclusive rules-set. One of the challenges any Dungeons and Dragons movie will face is exactly which story to tell. The game has been around since 1974 and has accrued a whole library’s worth of lore and stories. Add to this the fact that the game itself is all about making up your own adventures and it becomes quite clear why it’s taken so long to develop a script that can be truly described as Dungeons and Dragons.

Time will tell if this new movie will take the fantasy franchise into a bold new direction or if we will finally get to see other world’s from D&D vast catalogue of stories, including Ravenloft and Dragonlance

Halle Berry has signed up as executive producer and star of The Mothership a joint venture by Netflix and MRC Film. Bridge of Spiesscreenwriter Matthew Charman has written the script and this will be his first opportunity to direct a feature film.

The film will see Halle Berry’s Sara Morse desperately in search of her missing husband when the discovery of an extraterrestrial object under their farmhouse home adds a new dimension to his mysterious vanishing.

In the meantime, fans of Berry have two more genre-based films to look forward to. Netflix has recently bought the rights to her directorial debut, the martial arts drama Bruised, and she also stars in the upcoming science fiction film Moonfall directed by Roland Emmerich, who back in 1996 put a huge mothership of his own at the centre of the action in Independence Day.

Source: Deadline