Max Landis has been keeping himself very busy lately with writing screenplays. The 30-year old son of director John Landis (Animal House) sold his latest spec script Deeper to MGM. Three-time Oscar nominated actor Bradley Cooper (American Sniper) is also tied to play the main protagonist of the film. The studio won out in what was a competitive bidding war to pick up Landis’ latest script. Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo (White God) is likely to helm the project.
Deeper is a supernatural thriller that centers on a disgraced astronaut who is on a deep-sea dive exploring a newly discovered trench but soon finds himself confronted by a sinister and dangerous force. According to The Hollywood Reporter, those who have read it have described it as having a tone similar to recent commercial and critics hits like Gravity and The Martian.
Other studios that were in the mix for the bidding war included Bold, Oddlot, Open Road, Fox Searchlight and Paramount. Landis is still fresh off of his previous script acquisition by Netflix for the film Bright, which totaled up to a $90 million dollar project. David Ayer (Suicide Squad) is set to direct the crime-fantasy hybrid with Will Smith and Joel Edgerton attached to star. Landis is famous for his other screenplays such as Chronicle and American Ultra. He is repped by WME, Writ Large and Barh & Abramson. No time table has been set for when Deeper will begin production.