True Detective Creator Nic Pizzolatto To Write And Direct A Horror Film At Blumhouse
The man who made "True Detective" is now going to make a horror movie with the industry's premier producer of horror movies. Nic Pizzolatto has revealed that he has been contracted to write and direct a film for Blumhouse Productions, the studio behind hits such as "The Purge," "The Black Phone," and the current reigning box office champ "Five Nights at Freddy's" among many, many others. Depending on how things shake out, this could wind up serving as Pizzolatto's feature directorial debut. However, that is not set in stone at this stage.
I attended a panel that Pizzolatto spoke at during this year's Austin Film Festival. During the panel, the filmmaker best known for creating HBO's hit anthology series "True Detective" revealed that he's set to make "an occult detective story" for Blumhouse, for which he's already written the script. Here's what he had to say about it:
"Blumhouse contracted me to write and direct a horror movie, which I gave them the script for last week. It's kind of an occult detective story. But I just took a meeting with them once and we just kind of shot the s*** and we had some common friends and we were wrapping up and Couper [Samuelson], the VP of Blumhouse, said, 'Look, if you ever have an idea for a horror movie ...' And I go, 'Actually, I have one idea for a horror movie and I've had it for 10 years,' and I told it to him and he's like, 'Let's go make this.' I've got to see what they think of the script, but hopefully we'll be doing that."
An occult detective story and the perfect man for the job
Pizzolatto didn't divulge any further details on the project, such as potential casting or any more story details, but it's now in the hands of the powers that be at Blumhouse. That said, the studio's entire business model is built around making movies on the cheap with low-risk, high-reward potential. Betting on a guy like Pizzolatto seems like the exact kind of thing that Jason Blum and co. would do.
Pizzolatto has yet to direct a movie in his career, but he did direct several episodes of "True Detective." He also wrote the screenplay for "The Magnificent Seven" remake, as well as the adaptation of his own novel "Galveston." His other feature credits include Netflix's thriller "The Guilty" and, more recently, a rewrite of Marvel's long-in-development "Blade" reboot. Interestingly, Pizzolato is also turning "The Magnificent Seven" into a series for Amazon, even though the project started out as an original Western.
Blumhouse has been very busy as of late. They've released big franchise films such as "The Exorcist: Believer" and "Five Nights at Freddy's," as well as originals made for streaming such as "Totally Killer." The studio is also behind one of the biggest original theatrical hits of the year with "M3GAN," which has a sequel in development as well.
No word yet on how soon Pizzolatto's movie could actually come to fruition but stay tuned for more details.