Given the ongoing coronavirus quarantine, it’s not clear, exactly, when movie theaters will actually be open and ready for business, but whenever they are, Bombshell screenwriter Charles Randolph plans to have a (extremely recent) historical drama ready and waiting. According to Deadline, the Academy Award-winning Big Short scribe will write, direct and produce a film currently known as the Untitled Wuhan Project, which will reportedly cover the not-so-distant “dramatic weeks in China as the heroic medical community confronts a mysterious virus, soon to become a global pandemic.†The film will be Randolph’s directorial debut.
Temporal proximity to the event in question aside, Randolph has recently made a name for himself for dramas based on real-life events, whether they be the fall of Fox News head Roger Ailes over sexual harassment in Bombshell, or the cratering of the United States housing market in The Big Short. SK Global Entertainment, known for films like Crazy Rich Asians, Moneyball, and Hell Or High Water, will finance and produce.
The movies will reportedly be filmed in China, and fill feature “Chinese and international talent and crew.†Said Randolph, “I’m very happy to be working with everyone at SK Global to get this right. The deeper we dig, the richer the story of Wuhan becomes. It’s one thing to fight a monster. It’s another thing to fight a monster in the dark.â€