Maybe on some planet Ava DuVernay and Jay Roach are similar directors, but it ain't this one. Earlier this year DuVernay was set to team with Lupita Nyong'o on Amblin's sci-fi romance, Intelligent Life, a film that has a ton of heat thanks to be written by Jurassic World duo Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly. But DuVernay was too busy with A Wrinkle in Time and dropped out, quickly followed by Nyong'o, and now its Roach who may be stepping in to fill the void.
Roach is current giving the script a rewrite with an eye towards directing the Steven Spielberg-produce film, which centers on a U.N. employee hired to represent humanity in its first contact with an alien, only to end up falling in love with the extraterrestrial.
Don't get me wrong; Roach is a much better filmmaker now than when he was spear-heading the Austin Powers and Meet the Parents movies. He directed Bryan Cranston's Oscar-nominated performance in Trumbo, and won a coupe of Emmys for political films Recount and Game Change. He recenly earned an Emmy nomination for HBO's LBJ/MLK drama, All the Way.
