EXCLUSIVE: In the wake of Barbie racking up eight Oscar nominations including Best Picture and becoming Warner Bros’ highest-grossing movie of all time at $1.44 billion, here’s another female-power event project that’s in the works under the Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy administration.
We understand that Tim Burton is attached to direct , a reimagined telling of the 1958 Warner Bros. movie classic, which Gone Girl scribe and Sharp Objects Emmy nominee Gillian Flynn is writing.
The original sci-fi cult classic made for a reported $88,000 starred Allison Hayes as a wealthy heiress whose close encounter with an alien triggers her to grow into a giant, complicating her marriage, which is already in turmoil, no thanks to her philandering husband.
Burton has delivered reimagined ’50s sci-fi movies before for a mass audience, that being 1996’s Mars Attacks!, which was actually based on the Topps trading cards and featured an ensemble cast of Jack Nicholson, Annette Bening, Natalie Portman, Danny DeVito, Michael J. Fox and others. The movie grossed over $101M at the global box office.
Burton is producing Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman with Andrew Mittman and Tommy Harper. Kai Dolbashian is an EP.
In directing feature credits alone, Burton has racked up $4.1 billion at the global box office off such hits as Alice in Wonderland, Planet of the Apes, Batman, Batman Returns, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Nightmare Before Christmas. He is repped by WME.
Burton has the sequel to his 1988 Warner Bros. blockbuster, Beetlejuice, coming out on Sept. 6; the pic receiving the title today of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 2024 A.D.
Heidi Jo Brady
Recently, it was announced that Flynn would adapt her other novel, Dark Places, as an HBO limited series. She will serve as co-creator, co-showrunner and writer of the series.
Flynn, a former Entertainment Weekly reporter, adapted her own novel, Gone Girl, for the big screen, which David Fincher directed. The movie grossed over $369M worldwide and saw its lead actress Rosamund Pike land an Oscar nom. Flynn also adapted her own debut novel, Sharp Objects, into an HBO limited series which landed her a Primetime Emmy nom in limited series. Flynn also created the Prime Video series Utopia and wrote the Steve McQueen thriller movie, Widows, starring Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Michelle Rodriguez, Colin Farrell, Carrie Coon, and Elizabeth Debicki. Flynn is repped by WME, Theresa Kang, and Jackoway Austen.