Yesterday, Deadline put up a piece about recent Emmy-winner Noah Hawley's novel, Before the Fall, being adapted into a feature by Sony. Buried at the end of the post (and picked up by numerous outlets, including Coming Soon) is this line:
Hawley, while readying another season of Fargo, is separately scripting an untitled project at Universal that will be part of that studio’s classic monster franchise push.
Well then.
We know that Alex Kurtzman, Chris Morgan, and Jon Spaihts were writing the MUMMY reboot that was going to kick off Universal's ambitious plans for their roster of monsters, and I'm guessing Uni wouldn't bring Hawley in for touch-ups or lines of dialogue. My guess is that he had a pitch for one of their other big bads (Dracula? The Wolf Man? Creature from the Black Lagoon?) that got them excited enough to lock him (and his street cred) down.
However, if he was actively developing a major property at the studio, you'd think they'd want to announce it it in a big way, given the post-FARGO heat Hawley currently has in his favor.
A ton of us loved the first season of Hawley's FARGO (which the writer penned every episode of), and the dude has a talent for telling big, absurd stories in a human, funny way. Until we know more about which project Hawley may or may not be writing for Universal, it's hard to speculate what kind of vibe he'd be going for, but just knowing that they're not just hiring studio shills like Kurtzman or in-house guys like Morgan gives me more hope for this upcoming rollout.
Get him as your Joss Whedon, guys. Not fucking Alex Kurtzman.
We should hear Universal (or Hawley) deny or confirm the subject sooner than later.
