Jeff Nichols has revealed he is writing his first original work since 2016 sci-fi Midnight Special that will take him back to his native territory of Arkansas, backdrop to early features Shotgun Stories and Mud.
The project is in addition to his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novels ‘The Passenger’ and its companion ‘Stella Maris’ about siblings living with the knowledge that their father helped develop the atom bomb. “I am adapting the last two Cormac McCarthy novels but then I am also writing my first original script since Midnight Special, my fourth film,” said Nichols.
Fifth film Loving, about interracial couple Mildred and Richard Loving’s 1960s battle to have their marriage recognized in Virginia, was inspired by Nancy Buirski’s 2011 documentary The Loving Story, while Chicago-based crime drama The Bikeriders was based on Danny Lyon’s book of the same name. “I’ve been making period pieces and films inspired by other people’s work and this next film for better or worse is going to be cut from Jeff Nichols cloth,” added the director who is keeping all other details under wraps for now, beyond the fact that it will be based in his native Arkansas.
Nichols was talking to Deadline at the Marrakech Film Festival in Morocco which is he attending as 2024 patron-lead mentor of the event’s Atlas Workshops, a talent and project incubator aimed at emerging filmmakers from the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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