Jaume Collet-Serra has been plating up genre fair for his whole career, with films such as Orphan, Non-Stop and The Shallows, but he’s set to direct arguably his biggest project yet. He’s signed on to direct Waco for Annapurna Pictures, which will recount the 1993 standoff between the FBI and Texas Law Enforcement against the Branch Davidians cult.
Law enforcement attempted to raid the compound of the cult due to a tip that they had assembled a stockpile of weapons, but it was unsuccessful and led to a 51 day standoff that ended with cult leader David Koresh ordering his followers to set the building ablaze, leading to 76 deaths.
Oscar-winning writer Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker) has written the script alongside Marc Haimes (Kubo And The Two Strings), while Annapurna (Her, The Master, American Hustle) will produce the film.
What does this add up to? A probable prestige picture for an intriguing director who’s built a niche for himself helming dark thrillers and horrors. Naturally, there’s a lot of darkness to this story too, and with Annapurna just starting to carve out their own distribution arm, this is likely a big investment and show of trust from them to Collet-Serra.
Interestingly, Waco isn’t the only version of the story in production. A limited TV series based on the same events starring Taylor Kitsch and Michael Shannon is also in the works, with John Erick Dowdle directing.
This is certainly a story worth telling and is another addition to the recent trend of 90s incidents being revisited through film. Collet-Serra has a chance to break out from his genre work with an enticing story, and there’s probably a good chance he’ll show the world how talented he truly is.
Before that however, he’s still got one more team up with frequent collaborator Liam Neeson to come, The Commuter, sometime later this year.
#Peace.Love.Waco
