Akiva Goldsman & Warner Bros. Pick Up Spec Script 'Dark Moon'

'The Fourth Kind' Director Olatunde Osunsanmi To Helm

Deadline reports that Akiva Goldsman's Weed Road production company, along with Warner Bros., has acquired spec script "Dark Moon" for a reported six-figure deal. Written and set to be directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi ("The Fourth Kind"), the drama will purportedly utilize found footage to tell a story of a black ops moon mission that "explore(s) previously classified discoveries" with a high focus on their "disturbing consequences."

While the idea of using found footage in a narrative film is interesting (see: Werner Herzog's "Wild Blue Yonder," but then again, also see all these other entries into the "found footage" canon), don't get your hopes up. Osunsanmi is responsible for previously mentioned and god-awful "The Fourth Kind," a sci-fi thriller starring Milla Jovovich and Elias Koteas that centered around unexplained disappearances (aka ALIENS!) in Alaska. Holding a shameful 17% at Rotten Tomatoes, most critics agree that the picture is much too silly to be taken seriously, with a handful of jumps but is mostly ho-hum. Chances are, this is likely to be a generic drama/thriller with a cute little gimmick that audiences -- the same ones that gave his previous film its $50 million worldwide haul -- could really give two shits about. Also, Goldsman's Weed Road has been responsible for not only the all time terrible "Constantine" and middling "I Am Legend," but this year's handicapped comic book adaptations "The Losers" and "Jonah Hex." While we don't see too many specs getting picked up like this, we can't even get mildly excited for it due to the middling efforts of all those involved.

As for Olatunde, things are certainly looking good. This is just one project to add to his hefty plate of garbage cinema, as he's attached to direct "The Commuter," about a man's "deadly commute from work in New York City" and he's written "Zero-G," focusing on the effects of zero gravity on a U.S. city due to an unknown "never-before-seen" weapon. At least we can be assured that his newly acquired wealth hasn't tempered his artistic integrity. -- Christopher Bell