Now we’re worried that Hollywood is trying to tell us something. JJ Abrams is now putting together an earthquake disaster film while New Line is already at work on one, so that “something” appears to be that California (or wherever the Bad Robot project is set) is doomed.
Abrams has hauled a seemingly dormant disaster project out of mothballs for Universal, and handed scripting chores to Milk’s Dustin Lance Black.
While the studio made the original Earthquake in 1974, this one is apparently not a remake, just another movie where lots of buildings get destroyed and roads buckle, albeit without Charlton Heston to order everyone around this time.
With the pic firmly in the clutches of Abrams and co, there are naturally no plot details to be found just yet. Black is an intriguing choice to write a disaster movie, especially since he has specialized in biopics (including** J. Edgar** and Fox’s planned film about robber the Barefoot Bandit), but that’s what makes it an interesting idea.
Right now, Abrams is only producing the movie along with regular partner Bryan Burke. That said, given his professed love of the ’74 film (and its poster cropping up in Super 8), you could certainly see him wanting to orchestrate his own disaster epic…