Michael Brandt, Derek Haas on animal-themed film
Writers Michael Brandt and Derek Haas have taken on fast cars and Western trains. Now the duo are tackling animals taking over the planet.
The two scribes, whose latest project, "Wanted," hits theaters today, have drafted a script for Sony and producer Neal Moritz and his Original Film titled "All Creatures Great and Small."
It's set in a world where the animals control the planet and humans are the minority.
Brandt said "Creatures" is a "big, fun, fantastic 'Jurassic Park'-type movie."
"Because of people's inability to quench their thirst for oil and consumption of resources, we basically ruin the planet, and the planet fights back," Brandt said. "And part of that is the quick evolution of many of the animals."
"Creatures" takes place in North America, "where people are literally living in forts, and the animals are running free," he added. "It's not like dogs and cats are killing people, it's that the strong have survived. Lions and bears and animals like that have all evolved, and they're slowly eating away at the human population."
Brandt said the idea came during a brainstorming session with Moritz, with whom they had signed a blind deal to develop a project. Moritz had been throwing around the "Creatures" idea internally at Original, and when he told the scribes about it, "We said that's what we want to write," Brandt said.
Sony's Andrea Giannetti will oversee the project for the studio.
Brandt and Haas are the writing force behind such films as "2 Fast 2 Furious" and "3:10 to Yuma."
The duo, who met 19 years ago at Baylor University, are having a busy year with the release of "Wanted" and the recent sale of a pitch to MGM for "The Matarese Circle," starring Denzel Washington, with Di Bonaventura Pictures.
Haas's first novel, "The Silver Bear," a thriller about an assassin, is due to be released July 15. Brandt is set to direct "Countdown," based on the Richard Matheson short story "Death Ship," for Summit Entertainment in the fall; Haas is producing.
Brandt and Hass are repped by WMA.
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