It’s an old saying, but it’s true: If you want something done right, hire a Norwegian guy who’s already made a film about giant creatures and crude Scandinavian humor. It looks like production companies XYZ Films and Starstream are following that sage wisdom, because Variety reports Troll Hunter writer–director Andre Øvredal has been hired to direct upcoming science-fiction thriller Emergence. And while it does seem unlikely this new film will feature quite as many grizzled old Norwegians, there’s always the chance he simply travels with a posse of them, Mark Wahlberg-in-Entourage-style, so that they can appear in the background of random shots.
Of course, that might be a little harder to justify this time out, as the film’s plot involves a mining crew on a distant moon. (A grizzled old Norwegian mining crew?) The crew “faces a frantic struggle for survival when a rogue terraforming organism is accidentally released on the surface, spreading like wildfire as it consumes anything in its path.” So, like Leviathan, basically, only not underwater, and with 100 percent less Peter Weller. Øvredal recently wrapped the Emile Hirsch-starring supernatural thriller The Autopsy Of Jane Doe, so he’s probably excited to take on a project that features less chance of his being put into a chokehold without provocation.
