Bumblebee director Travis Knight has signed on to helm Uprising, an upcoming vampire film in the works at Netflix.
Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight) has written the latest draft of the screenplay, after previous versions were penned by Jay Basu and JD Payne & Patrick McKay. Emily Morris will produce for Shawn Levy‘s 21 Laps banner, which has an overall deal with the streamer.
The film is based on Raymond Villareal‘s book A People’s History Of The Vampire Uprising, and is being described as an action-thriller. It takes place during the midst of a global pandemic as a virus starts turning people into vampires, and revolves around CIA agent Lauren Webb, who’s racing against time to uncover the truth behind the growing uprising that threatens to wipe out all of humanity.
Although Villareal’s book was written before the current COVID-19 pandemic, it obviously takes on greater resonance now. It will be interesting to see how the film balances a supernatural aspect like vampirism with the obvious real life parallels to a global pandemic.
Knight’s background is mostly in animation – he’s been the CEO of Laika, the animation studio behind films like Coraline and Kubo And The Two Strings (which he also directed), since 2006 – but his successful Transformers spinoff Bumblebee has had studios interested in him for a number of live-action projects.
He almost directed the Uncharted video game adaptation that cycled through a host of filmmakers. His latest project is supposed to be The Six Billion Dollar Man, which he signed on to direct in April 2019, but we haven’t heard much since. Perhaps he’s off the project, or maybe Uprising has simply jumped ahead in the queue.
It’s little surprise that this movie is in the works at Netflix, as the streamer has a host of vampire content. Vampires vs. The Bronx, Immortals, V Wars, and the hit anime series Castlevania all reside on Netflix, as will the upcoming Jamie Foxx thriller Day Shift.
While the genre isn’t as popular as it was during the Twilight era, it’s still a draw, and Netflix knows it. We’ll see if Uprising can rise to the top of the streaming giant’s vampire output. Knight’s impressive track record, although still small, suggests that it might.
#Peace.Love.Uprising
