Original script alert! Well, sort of… 20th Century Fox is now hip deep in negotiations to pick up Chronicle**, a story of super powers and teen rivalry that was written on spec by Max Landis.
If that last name sounds familiar, you’re not wrong: he is, in fact the son of Burke and Hare’s John Landis, and has worked with his father on one of his Masters of Horror episodes, as well as another Masters script and an episode of NBC anthology Fear Itself.
But now, after having written a couple of shorts, he’s graduating to features with Chronicle, which will follow three Portland teenagers who are exposed to a strange substance in the woods (stop sniggering in the back, there). After their encounter, the trio begins to develop amazing powers and while they initially use them for fun, personal issues start to turn them against one another.
Apparently Fox is looking to shoot the movie in the hand-held docu-style of **Cloverfield **and has hired Josh Trank to direct it. Trank has a history creating web series and also edited the Patton Oswalt movie Big Fan. And there’s one other big plus in his ability to handle documentary-style filmmaking: a famous father of his own. In this case, it’s Richard Trank, who bagged an Oscar for producing 1997’s The Long Way Home. Let's hope talent runs in the two families, eh?