Kathryn Bigelow is one of three women who have won the Oscar for Best Director, the other two being Chloe Zhao and most recently Jane Campion. But it’s been half a decade since Bigelow’s last film, the underrated Detroit, and ten years since Zero Dirty Thirty. Well, the wait is finally over for her next picture, as THR report she has joined up with Netflix for Aurora, an adaptation of the upcoming novel by David Koepp.
The novel is due to hit store shelves in June. Here’s the official synopsis:
In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son.
Then the lights go out—not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood.
Across the country lives Aubrey’s estranged brother, Thom. A fantastically wealthy, neurotically over-prepared Silicon Valley CEO, he plans to ride out the crisis in a gilded desert bunker he built for maximum comfort and security.
But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of several long-overdue reckonings—which not everyone will survive . . .
Aurora is suspenseful storytelling—both large scale and small—at its finest.
Whoa. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Bigelow tackle genre like this, not since 1995’s Strange Days. The budget is reportedly set for $100M, too, which means she doesn’t need to hold anything back. It’ll be interesting to see how she works with Koepp, who of course is a Spielberg favorite and Indiana Jones writer. He’s coming off the Rear Window-esque thriller Kimi that accomplishes a lot under pandemic restraints. Working alongside Bigelow on a larger platform could produce some amazing results.
