Christopher Nolan and Michael Bay among directors submitted for your approval for new Twilight Zone movie

By Sean O'Neal | September 30, 2011 | 10:50pm

Aux Features Film

Leonardo DiCaprio is still intent on producing a new Twilight Zone feature—and unlike the 1983 version, the new film will boast only a single storyline (from The Astronaut’s Wife writer Rand Ravich), which will touch on several themes from the original Rod Serling show, such as the idea that man’s fate is determined almost entirely by irony. And in keeping with ditching the anthology format (previously split up among Steven Spielberg, John Landis, Joe Dante, and George Miller), Warner Bros. is looking for just a single director this time, with a shortlist narrowed down to four names: Christopher Nolan, Michael Bay, Alfonso Cuaron, and whom Variety terms the “dark horse,” Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes director Rupert Wyatt, which is probably the first time anyone named “Rupert” has been called a “dark horse.” That’s really more of a Welsh cob sort of name.

Anyway, not surprisingly, Nolan is considered the front-runner to take on the project, thanks to his close relationship with DiCaprio, who probably discussed the project with Nolan during their daily Harpo Marx mirror routine. However, Bay is also reportedly very interested—though given the tragedy that befell Vic Morrow on the first Twilight Zone, and Bay’s own history with on-set injuries, maybe not tempting fate is as good a reason as any to not have a Michael Bay-directed Twilight Zone movie. In the meantime, all four directors are probably wondering how they came to be suddenly trapped together, trying to determine the nature of their relationship and growing increasingly desperate with every passing moment, as they begin to turn on each other out of paranoid terror, until they discover that they’re the same but now everyone else is different, and also they time-traveled but it was Earth all along.