This Sunday finally sees the culmination of the 2019 film season, as the best and brightest in Hollywood convene to award the so-called best movies of the year. The probability of Best Picture edges closer and closer to 1917, with the Best Director race, largely a two-horse race between Sam Mendes and Bong Joon-ho, leaning heavily towards the former.
For those tired of hearing about the same old films, perhaps it’s time to take a quick look at the future. Let’s take a look beyond this season to the upcoming year to see what these nominated directors are working on next.
From a potential R-rated Star Trek to a Joker Sequel to a Korean action-horror to a Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio reunion, read our complete list to get the full picture of what these directors are (or might be) working on next. Please bear in mind that while some of these films have been confirmed and have even started pre-production, many of them are still rumours or reports of conversations with press.
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino has been very forthright in mentioning that he only wants to make ten films before hanging up his boots. With Kill Bill – split into two separate films – counting as one, extra-long movie in his mind, this means that the Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood director may have only one more outing behind the camera.
Tarantino is a big enough director that every time he opens his mouth about a potential project it sends shivers through the internet. The latest rumor was that he was going to direct an R-rated Star Trek film; now it looks like he may only write and produce. Other long-standing rumors are a third Kill Bill outing as well as a Django/Zorro crossover. To make things even more confusing, he told The Independent that if the script is good enough, he might do a horror film. Whatever it is, we would like to see it.
Sam Mendes
Sam Mendes splits his time between the theatre and film, making it likely that the director will return there after the awards season is over. As of right now, it appears that the 1917 director hasn’t got anything on his slate, although following the film’s inevitable win, it is likely that he will have a lot of new offers on his plate. With around three years on average between his different projects, expect a little wait before we hear anything new from the two-time Bond director.
Bong Joon-ho
With his monumental success in directing not only the first Korean film to have an Oscar nomination, but also putting the country’s cinema on the map, Bong Joon-ho will likely have a lot more flexibility and far higher budget when it comes to choosing his next project. In an interview with Collider the director teased a couple of projects.
The first is a Korean horror-action film about a disaster in Seoul that he has been developing for 18 years. The second is an English-language film, which he says “began with a news article I randomly came across on CNN in 2016.” It will be a “small realistic drama piece” and will no doubt have every big name in Hollywood clamouring to work with him. With previous credits in both Hollywood and Korea, it seems that the Okja and The Host director will be capable of spanning countries unlike any Korean director before him.
Martin Scorsese
The Irishman feels like Martin Scorsese’s last picture. An epic tale of gangster life filled with longing and regret, it is a sombre reflection upon and reinvention of the genre he popularised with films like Goodfellas and Casino. Nonetheless, the 77 years young Italian-American has already prepped his next project.
In July 2019 he was already scouting locations for Killers of the Flower Moon, a film adaptation of the eponymous book by David Grann. The non-fiction book details a series of murders of wealthy people that took place in Osage Country in the early 1920s and the detectives from the newly formed FBI tasked to hunt them down. The film will star regular collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro in the same Scorsese film for the first time, while Rodrigo Prieto returns as cinematographer. The film starts shooting in March. Expect it to come out next year.
Other potential projects from the legend of cinema, according to his IMDB page, are a biographical drama about President Theodore Roosevelt, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and TV series The Devil In The White City. The latter is based on The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, a non-fiction book by Erik Larson about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, told from both the viewpoint of the designers and a serial killer who operated at around the same time. With The Devil in The White City, produced by Hulu, it is likely that Scorsese will direct the pilot, before executive producing the rest of the series, like he did with HBO’s Vinyl. Let’s just hope it has a far longer shelf life than that unsuccessful show.
Todd Phillips
The Joker director has found a new level of critical acclaim with his unusually dark take on the Masked Clown’s early life. Considering that the film made over $1 billion in box office receipts, its success means that it basically has to have a sequel. Talks are now in the early stages for a second film starring Joaquin Phoenix, with Philips and his co-writer Scott Silver expected to write it. Batman will not appear however, as Warner Bros. is already making a standalone Batman film with Matt Reeves’ Robert Pattinson-starring The Batman.
This isn’t the only Todd Phillips film in production however. He is also scheduled to direct a Hulk Hogan biopic with Chris Hemsworth in the lead role. Scott Silver will write with John Pollono while Bradley Cooper will produce. Just don’t expect any more comedies from The Hangover director, who told Vanity Fair that it’s impossible to be “funny nowadays with this woke culture.”
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