James Wan may have branched out into blockbuster filmmaking and found massive success with Furious 7 and Aquaman, which made him the only person that isn’t James Cameron to have directed two unrelated movies that each earned over a billion dollars at the box office, but the filmmaker’s first love has and always will be the horror genre.
After rising to mainstream prominence as the co-creator of Saw alongside Leigh Whannell, the duo went on to collaborate once more on the Insidious franchise, with Wan directing the first two installments. He’s also the architect behind The Conjuring Universe having been heavily involved in the creative process for all of the various sequels and spinoffs.
Not only that, but Wan has original genre-bending horror Malignant releasing next year, and is also currently attached to tackle a new version of Frankenstein. Meanwhile, it was announced several months ago that the 43 year-old was working on a Netflix show and now, Stranger Things director Rebecca Thomas has signed on to helm half of the eight-episode Article 81 series.
The project is based on the found footage podcast of the same name, which sees an archivist restoring a collection of damaged tapes from a quarter of a century ago, before he finds himself becoming drawn into the investigation of a dangerous cult that originally led to a documentary filmmaker’s murder.
It sounds right up Wan’s street, and the addition of Thomas behind the camera is an added bonus given her experience of working on horror-oriented shows for Netflix that come burdened with high expectations. Article 81 doesn’t have an official release date yet, but with the talent falling into place, it shouldn’t be too far away.
