Joaquin Phoenix to reunite with M. Night Shyamalan
According to Deadline, three-time Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix (The Master, Walk the Line) is set to reunite with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, The Visit) on a new, untitled film project from producer Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity, Insidious).
Phoenix previously worked with the director on 2002’s Signs and 2004’s The Village, both solid hits for Shyamalan, while Jason Blum worked with him on the $5 million dollar independent production The Visit, which is earning positive buzz before its debut in theaters on September 11. The new project for the trio will cost, like most Blumhouse productions, in the below $10 million range, while the logline for its story is being kept under tight wraps by the secretive Shyamalan.
Marc Bienstock will produce the film alongside Blum, while Ashwin Rajan and Steven Schneider executive produce.
Shyamalan has the hit FOX series “Wayward Pines” currently enjoying high ratings, and was in development on his long-gestating passion project Labor of Love with Bruce Willis headlining as of January 2014. Could this new project be Labor of Love with Phoenix in the lead, or an entirely new project? Either way, the Phoenix-led film will begin shooting in November in the director’s hometown of Philadelphia.
while in the last year Phoenix has headlined Woody Allen’s latest Irrational Man and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, both of which scored less than $10 million at the box office. Blum’s company has had an impressive string of low-cost/high-yield horror hits this year, including The Boy Next Door, The Lazarus Effect, Unfriended, Insidious Chapter 3, The Gallows and The Gift, although this past weekend’s Sinister 2 underperformed to expectations. Besides The Visit he has this fall’s Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension and The Green Inferno as well as the girl-oriented musical drama Jem and the Holograms.
(Photo credit: WENN)
