One of the most exciting things for the team here at Short of the Week is learning of the new projects in development from our previously featured filmmakers. From series to features, whenever news drops of fresh filmmaking ventures from our alums our in-house Slack channel is full of enthusiasm for the announcement.

Eager to share this news externally, we’ve started this In Development post to run alongside our Features & Series watchlist post. Including short film to series developments, reboots, Stephen King adaptations and even a new Predator movie below are the latest projects from our S/W alums:

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Apartment 7a by Natalie Erika James

Having made the step from short to feature with 2020 horror Relic, details of Natalie Erika James’ (Drum Wave) second feature were announced on the Hollywood Reporter recently. Though specifics are vague at the moment, it was revealed that Ozark’s Julia Garner will star and the film will be produced by John Krasinski and Michael Bay, among others.

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Blocks short film getting series Pilot

Bridget Moloney’s SXSW short Blocks – an existential comedy about the mother of two young children who begins to spontaneously vomit toy blocks – will be made into a 30-min series pilot with Showtime. With High Maintenance’s Ben Sinclair attached as producer (he was also executive producer on the short), the series plans to focus on new parents and how ‘struggles manifest into episodes of magical realism that force them to confront who they really are and what they really want’.

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Still from Joey Izzo’s Sundance short You’ve Never Been Completely Honest

Joey Izzo Developing Series Based on Sundance Short You Have Never Been Completely Honest

With a trio of shorts – Stepsister, My Daughter’s Boyfriend, I Was There Too – on Short of the Week, the first dating back to 2015, Joey Izzo has been a filmmaker we’ve long championed on our platform. With his new short, You Have Never Been Completely Honest, probably his best piece of filmmaking so far, it was gratifying to hear the director had teamed up with A24 and Brain Dead Studios for docuseries Self. Contacting Izzo to find out what we can expect from the series, he had this to share:

“You can think of the short as the origin for a much larger interconnected story that we will be telling about the self-help industry (or I guess they like to say wellness industry now). The short was a huge part of the series going into development. It’s not a concept that could be easily explained or written down to accurately convey the vision. And my previous work is so varied that I didn’t really have anything else I could directly point to as an aesthetic or tonal model. But once we made it, everyone immediately got what we were talking about. When you write “a visceral hybrid immersion into a nightmarish memory space” on paper some people might get excited but they really want to see, hear, and feel what you’re talking about. The short did just that. It also serves as a good creative guide for the entire internal creative team, giving us confidence in a fairly unorthodox method. We know it works because we did it once before and now the only thing I want to do is push further still”.

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Jonathan Entwistle’s Power Rangers Reboot heading to Netflix

The news of Jonathan Entwistle’s (Humans Beings, The End of the F***ing World) Power Rangers reboot came to attention a few years back, but more details were recently revealed in an interview with Entertainment One’s Head of Television Michael Lombardo on Deadline: “Since we set up Power Rangers with Jonathan, we pitched really a whole-world approach. It’s not just one show, it is shows followed by films, some kids’ programming. We have found a great writing partner for him, they are off. Knock on wood, Netflix is excited, we’re excited, we hope to have some news soon.”

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Artwork from DBK Studio’s new short film series Unearthed Narrative

Koby Adom’s DBK Studios Partners with Sky Studios for Short Film initiative Unearthed Narratives

Featured on our site back in 2019 with Haircut, Adom set up his own production company, DBK Studios, after becoming frustrated with his own experiences in the industry. “I experienced obstacles that I’d like to prevent other Black and ethnic minority filmmakers from unfairly experiencing”, Adom explains (on Deadline) and this seems like a real driving influence behind Unearthed Narratives. The series of five short films – Field, Teju’s Tale, Why Me?, Daddy’s Girl and Butterfly Affect – will look to point the spotlight on will spotlight on the UK’s emerging black and diverse talent. Screendaily also recently revealed that Adom was working with Film4 on an adaptation of the aforementioned short Haircut.

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M. Night Shyamalan Producing new Celine Held & Logan George Feature

The story of an eight-year-old girl who mysteriously disappears at a lake, Celine Held and Logan George’s new feature – which the pair reveal they are “finishing up our director’s cut right now” –  is being produced by M. Night Shyamalan’s Blinding Edge Pictures. Speaking to Short of the Week, the directorial duo describe the production as a “whirlwind of a project that has the same filmmaking style as our other work – cinematography by Lowell A. Meyer, and produced by Kara Durrett, who have both been essential collaborators since our shorts”. On working with Shyamalan, the pair explained the experience as “incredible”, adding that “he’s an expert on the genre, and has been so involved in the film, but has given us complete freedom to make the project our own. We feel so lucky to have met him”.

In further news, Deadline has also recently reported that Held and George’s SXSW award winner Topside was acquired for distribution by Vertical Entertainment and is set for release on March 25th.

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Artwork from Dan Trachtenberg’s upcoming Predator movie Prey

New details on Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator movie revealed

Having followed Dan Trachtenberg’s career since we featured his short film Portal: No Escape back in 2011, it’s been exciting watching him tackle franchise film 10 Cloverfield Lane for his feature debut, before moving onto TV, helming episodes of Black Mirror and The Boys. For his second feature, the director is tackling another franchise movie, with the new Predator film Prey, which is set 300 years ago and follows a skilled female warrior as she fights to protect her tribe against the alien hunter.

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Nikyatu Jusu Wins at Sundance and Teams with Universal and Monkeypaw for Next Feature

Congratulations go out to Nikyatu Jusu (Suicide by Sunlight) for winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2022 for her debut feature Nanny. On the back of this exciting news, Jusu’s second feature – an untitled horror film she’ll co-write with Fredrica Bailey – was picked up by Universal and Monkeypaw. Details of the project are yet to be released yet, but Monkeypaw President Win Rosenfeld revealed (on Deadline) that they are “thrilled to be teaming up with Nikyatu on her next project and believe she is a singular talent with brilliant stories to tell”.

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Rob Savage to adapt Stephen King short story The Boogeyman

Already a rising name in genre filmmaking, Rob Savage (Salt, Dawn of the Deaf) is now set to adapt Horror legend Stephen King’s 1978 short story The Boogeyman. Speaking to Short of the Week the filmmaker admitted he was “thrilled/terrified” to be adapting one of his favourite stories from the author and revealed they already have the “most incredible cast and crew” in place for when they start filming.

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Sometimes, I Think About Dying to become Feature Film

A team favorite here at Short of the Week (we awarded it Best Drama in our Short Awards back in 2020), we’re excited to hear that Stefanie Abel Horowitz’s Sometimes, I Think About Dying will be turned into a feature starring Daisy Ridley. Based on both the short and the play Killers by Kevin Armento, although Horowitz isn’t directing the adaptation, she’s taking the role of writer, along with Armento and Katy Wright-Mead.

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If you’re an alum and have a project in development feel free to add it to the comments below or email us directly to be included in this post.