Jordans Unite: Michael B. Jordan And Jordan Vogt-Roberts To Make A Monster Movie Together

Here's an unexpected but exciting pairing: director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kong: Skull Island) is teaming up with Black Panther star Michael B. Jordan to make a monster movie. Plot details are hard to come by, but read on to find out what we know so far.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the two Jordans will be uniting to make a mysterious monster movie that will be set in Vogt-Roberts' hometown of Detroit, Michigan. THR says Vogt-Roberts will direct and produce and Jordan will produce through his Outlier Society production company, but there's no mention of whether Jordan will pull double duty as the movie's star. New Regency, the company behind last year's Bohemian Rhapsody, will finance and produce the movie, which doesn't have a title yet. The idea for the film came from Vogt-Roberts, but the search is on for a screenwriter.

We reached out to Vogt-Roberts on Twitter to ask for more details, and he responded with a quote that has us even more excited:

"I got jealous and inspired by the incredible things [Michael] Dougherty and [Adam] Wingard are doing right now, so I'm creating my own sandbox to play in."

I'll circle back to that quote in a second. Vogt-Roberts broke out at the Sundance Film Festival a few years ago with his excellent coming of age movie The Kings of Summer (Toy's House, if ya nasty) before making the jump to the blockbuster space with Kong: Skull Island in 2017. He clearly has experience making monster movies, but what kind will this one be? Will it lean more toward big action or indie horror?

Dougherty and Wingard are fascinating comparison points due to the breadth of their work over the past few years. Dougherty is perhaps best known for directing the modern Halloween classic Trick 'r Treat, but he recently directed the Christmas horror film Krampus (which is basically a full-on monster movie) and has Godzilla: King of the Monsters coming up this summer. Those projects are on the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of  budget and scope.

Wingard has made low-budget horror flicks like You're Next and The Guest, and perhaps not coincidentally, is also directing a movie in Legendary's MonsterVerse: he's next tackling Godzilla vs. Kong, which is set to hit theaters in 2020. I have to assume that a company like New Regency won't be fronting $150 million for a new monster movie, so it seems safe to guess that this will be a smaller, possibly more personal affair.

There have been two films over the past few years that I'd classify as Detroit-set monster movies: It Follows and Don't Breathe. Neither features a traditional monster, but the tropes are there and they both make their environments an important part of the story. Since the setting is one of the few solid pieces of information the trades published about this film, I imagine Vogt-Roberts is going to make Detroit an essential part of this story as well. He shot a Destiny 2 commercial in Detroit a couple of years ago, so it's clear he still has a great affinity for the city where he grew up.

We'll bring you more about this project as soon as we learn it, but for right now, color us excited. In the meantime, Vogt-Roberts is slated to direct a TV adaptation of the book Console Wars, and he might finally get that Metal Gear movie off the ground, too.