Found Footage Alien Pic 'Dark Moon' Dropped By Warner Bros., Picked Up By Dark Castle

by Kevin Jagernauth
November 10, 2010 4:45 AM
1 Comment

And Will End Up Being Released By Warner Bros. Anyway

As an example of how fickle, fleeting and ultimately ridiculous Hollywood can get, following the plug being pulled on Roland Emmerich's low budget, found footage project "The Zone" yesterday, Warner Bros. followed suit, putting into turnaround the found footage spec script "Dark Moon" they picked up only a couple of weeks ago for six figures. The twist? They're gonna end up releasing it anyway.

Joel's Silver's Dark Castle production shingle is now in negotiations to pick up the title. They will finance and produce the picture along Akiva Goldsman's Weed Road shingle with the film set to go into production this winter. Warner Bros. will still end up distributing thanks to Dark Castle's deal with the studio. Nice one, Hollywood.

Written and set to be directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi (”The Fourth Kind”), the drama will purportedly utilize found footage to tell the story of a black ops moon mission that “explore(s) previously classified discoveries” with a sharp focus on their “disturbing consequences.” You will probably see this movie at least three or four times over thanks to "Skyline," "World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles," "Apollo 18" and "Super 8" all hitting in the next little while. It looks like "found footage"/alien invasion flicks are the genre equivalent of "fucking your best friend" comedies these days. At least Hollywood hasn't run out of ideas, right? [THR]

More: Films, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Dark Moon

1 Comment

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donny wahls | November 10, 2010 6:58 AMReply

it's actually not "found footage". i'm not sure why that information got out. The footage is apparently collected from the helmet cams of the astronauts (though it's never completely explained as such) because the bulk of the story is told in POV angles narrated by the three men on the mission. the narration is actually taken from the debriefing of the men at the hands of some unnamed CIA types.
it's a fun script. it's got issues, but it could be an interesting movie. the last quarter gets pretty massive with the special effects, so i can't imagine that's going to stand in it's current state with a dark castle style budget.