After a string of false starts and red herrings, Kathryn Bigelow’s Aurora will start shooting this year – her first film since Detroit.
Here’s a story that we return to every so often with a great deal of hope. Reports have emerged (this time via What’s On Netflix) that production is set to begin on Kathryn Bigelow’s next project, sometime ‘in early 2024.’
Bigelow is of course the director of acclaimed political dramas such as Zero Dark Thirty and Detroit. She was the first female director to win an Academy Award for 2010’s The Hurt Locker and she’s the filmmaker behind 1991’s Point Break.
Considering that list of accolades, it’s a shame we haven’t seen a film from Bigelow in the last seven years, although every once in a while a story surfaces to announce that cameras will soon be rolling on her next project.
There was talk last summer of Bigelow beginning production on a secret project named Smuggler but that looks to have been wide of the mark. Then there’s a project based on the real-life drama surrounding Bowe Berghdahl (the US soldier accused of desertion) that has been on Bigelow’s slate for a long time now.
However, it’s a project named Aurora that seems to be one moving forward. It has Netflix’s cash behind it and is based on a novel by renowned Hollywood writer David Koepp (he of Spider-Man, Mission: Impossible and Jurassic Park fame).
According to What’s On Netflix, ‘Aurora follows the events of a solar storm that knocks out most of humanity’s power grids and focuses on the personal story of a divorced mother who must now do everything she can to protect her teenager and her estranged brother, a wealthy Silicon Valley CEO who has built a luxurious bunker in the desert for just such a disaster.’
We first heard of the project almost two years ago, along with reports that it was in early development with plans to fast-track it into production. It doesn’t seem like that happened but then, a lot has changed with regards to Netflix’s attitude to movie production in the last couple of years (not least the imminent departure of Scott Stuber, the company’s head of film).
Hopefully, these updates are correct and Stuber’s upcoming departure doesn’t slow down the film’s timeline in any significant way. We’ll bring you more on Aurora as we hear it.
