With J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot production company has signed a major $250 million deal with WarnerMedia back in 2019, you would expect that part of that deal would see Abrams stretching beyond producing and possibly getting back to directing something.
However, several projects have already been announced – including a new “Superman” film penned by Ta-Nehisi Coates – but Abrams so far has not jumped at the chance to direct again following 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”.
Speaking to Collider this week to promote the Apple TV+ series “Lisey’s Story,” which he produced, Abrams says he is working closely with WarnerMedia regarding the studio’s DC superhero slate.
Yet while he has become known for reviving or rejuvenating existing franchises (eg. M:I-3, “Star Trek,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”), he appears to have lost the taste for adapting someone else’s franchise for now:
“I know that Hollywood is a place where it used to be that people would be inspired by something that they would see or an old film or a show or something and think, ‘Oh, here’s my response to that. Here’s a version of that’. Its become a place where, more often than not, you see something and people get inspired by it and go, ‘Let’s redo that exact thing.’
I feel like, as someone who started writing in television and telling original stories on film and in TV, it is something that I really do miss. The few things that I’m working on now, as a writer, are original ideas. I just feel, as a director, I really would love to have my next projects be things that didn’t pre-exist me necessarily.”
Only one of Abrams directorial efforts to date, “Super 8,” has been an original property and even that was heavily inspired by Spielberg/Amblin style 1980s features. Even so, Abrams will likely still have a hand in certain DC projects moving forward.
