Simon Kinberg and Neill Blomkamp Turning Sci-Fi Short LEVIATHAN into Feature
Last week, we posted an awesome short film called The Leviathan from Oscar-nominated director Ruairi Robinson, who released the project as a proof-of-concept piece in the hopes of generating interest for a potential feature-length adaptation. Since the short is about giant space whales (!), it garnered a ton of attention from the geek community — and it also caught the attention of a number of big name Hollywood producers.
Deadline reports that Simon Kinberg (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Fantastic Four) has boarded the project as a producer, while Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Chappie, the upcoming Alien 5) will be an executive producer. Kingberg's first-look deal with 20th Century Fox was likely a factor in him beating out a lot of other producers for the chance to make this movie, since the idea of a studio having a first option on the project was probably pretty appealing to Robinson. But as Deadline points out, even if Fox does end up passing on the adaptation, the filmmakers likely won't have trouble finding an eventual distributor considering how insanely popular the short has proven to be over the course of just a few days.
As for Blomkamp, as long as he stays far, far away from the script, this movie has a much better shot at actually being great. He's already proven that he's an exceptional world-builder who knows design like few others working today, but he's also a writer who seems to hit people over the head with his messages and lets the story take a backseat to his designs. If he helps with the look of the movie and avoids story elements altogether, that's a best-case scenario for The Leviathan.
Here's the synopsis, and you can watch the whole thing again below to get pumped up for the full-length movie:
By the early 22nd century mankind had colonized many worlds. Faster than light travel was made possible by harvesting exotic matter from the eggs of the largest species mankind has ever seen. Those that take part in the hunt are mostly involuntary labor.