Colin Trevorrow to Direct Atlantis Fantasy Movie for Skydance

For his next film, director Colin Trevorrow is going under the sea.

Per the Hollywood Reporter, the director of Jurassic World and near-director on Star Wars Episode IX will be directing and producing Atlantis for Skydance. The filmmaker will be working from a script written by Charmaine DeGraté, an executive producer on HBO’s House of Dragon (who also wrote the fantasy drama’s fifth episode) and will be a writer/co-EP on Disney’s upcoming series Star Wars: The Acolyte.

According to the outlet, the film will be a fantasy adventure flick whose premise is based on the titular fabled undersea civilization. Atlantis (the kingdom) has been a fixture in pop culture for decades. If you didn’t read about it in The Silmarillion or Animorphs, you saw it come to life through TV and films such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Doctor Who, or (technically) Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. And even taking something like Avatar: The Way of Water into account in terms of water technology, Trevorrow has a lot of influence to draw from. 

Atlantis was originally in production over at Universal with a script from Alien: Covenant’s co-screenwriter Dante Harper. Trevorrow was attached to direct and develop the film back then as well, and Skydance snatched it up once Universal opted to return the project to the director. He and DeGraté have since retooled the project, though it still contains the aforementioned premise that was in Harper’s script.

Notably, the film will be Trevorrow’s first movie after wrapping a bow on the Jurassic World franchise with last year’s Jurassic World Dominion. In fact, you may remember that he talked about wanting to make an Atlantis film in late 2021, months before Dominion’s release. Beyond that, Atlantis will also serve as the director’s first original (read: non-franchise) film that he’s helmed since 2017’s The Book of Henry. As for DeGraté, this will be her first feature film project. At time of writing, Skydance hasn’t attached a specific date to Atlantis.

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