Not somebody you'd necessarily call idle, Roland Emmerich is currently scheming an Independence Day sequel and the political drama Stonewall. But there's apparently room for one more project on his slate, since he's just picked up a spec script by Nicolas Wright and James A. Woods. The as-yet untitled action film is set on "a diving ship in the Arctic".
It's yet another example of the spec script making something of a comeback in recent years, after its multimillion dollar '90s heyday and subsequent decline. Safer properties (books, comics, sequels) replaced specs in recent years, but a recent article in the LA Times reveals that, while just 67 spec scripts were sold in Hollywood in 2009, the number rose to 154 in 2012 and 182 last year. Crazy paydays like the ones previously enjoyed by Shane Black and Joe Esterhasz are still thin on the ground, however.
The script - which we'll call we'll call Arctic Dive for convenience - was picked up by producer Marco Shepherd for Emmerich's production company Centropolis, and it's not yet clear whether Emmerich actually has it earmarked to direct himself.
Wright and Woods are both actors when they're not cranking out screenplays. Woods had small roles in Immortals and Source Code, and a recurring part in the US version of Being Human. Wright, meanwhile, played Donnie The Guide in Emmerich's White House Down, and clearly got to know the right people while he was doing so. As writers, the pair were previously behind a Comedy Central pilot called Almost Vacant.
There's much to be done in the way of prepping Arctic Dive, so there's not even a start date so far. Independence Day 2, by contrast, already has a release date of July 1, 2016.