Bradley Cooper to Star in Max Landis' Thriller DEEPER
Max Landis (Chronicle, Victor Frankenstein, American Ultra) recently sold his script for the Will Smith/Joel Edgerton starrer Bright to Netflix for a reported $3 million, and it sounds like he already has another project heating up in Hollywood. The Wrap reports that Bradley Cooper is attached to star and White God director Kornel Mundruczo is lined up to direct Deeper, a new thriller that multiple studios are currently bidding on.
“Deeper” is a drama about a disgraced astronaut who embarks on a mission to reach the bottom of a newly-discovered oceanic trench, which some speculate may be the lowest point on Earth. Facing great danger, he quickly finds himself in a physical and psychological fight against mysterious forces.
Landis told The Playlist that Deeper is "the best thing [he's] ever written," and he also told them about a new "spiritual sequel" to that project that he's already writing, which is called Higher:
"[It's] like a two-person play — it all takes place in a barn and it's about a woman. The whole script is 75 pages of one scene and then 25 pages of going up into outer space. But for the whole script, it's just a lawyer talking to a woman who's shirtless and covered in writing and equations and who's building what appears to be a spaceship. At first it seems like the guy’s just a mean lawyer or a government agent who's been sent to shut down what she's doing. And then the scene I'm writing right now, page 25 — I'm so excited— shows her going back and forth with this lawyer, and less and less of the things she's saying are making sense," he said.
"It's clear that she's made a tiny nuclear reactor — she's a genius and it's clear she wants to go into orbit for reasons we don't fully understand," Landis continued. "But she's also saying weird things about the stars going out, and she says her daughter is 16 while he says her daughter is 9. She goes into this very long rant, and it ends with him going, 'Are you sure what you remember is accurate to reality?' And she says, 'Yes. Yes, stop bullying me.' And he goes, 'Who am I?' And she goes, 'I don't know.' He goes, 'Who am I? Look at me.' And she realizes it's her fucking husband. She's having a schizophrenic break. So that's the end of the first act."
The writer is on a tear right now, with his directorial debut Me Him Her currently in theaters and the Sam Rockwell/Anna Kendrick film Mr. Right coming out on April 8th. What do you think about Deeper?