Chloe promoting The Eternals at comic-con
Chloé Zhao made history as the first woman of color to win Best Director. We don't have to wait long for her Nomadland follow-up. Next up: Her fourth film -- a huge change of pace from her three quiet earthy features -- is Marvel's gargantuanly budgeted sci-fi superhero film The Eternals which hits theaters on November 5th, 2021. She has two more projects in development that aren't very far along. There's another take on Dracula supposedly coming and a directing gig (but not writing) on a period biopic about the first black US Deputy Marshall Bass Reeves, who was born into slavery, and later arrested thousands of dangerous criminals working in the Oklahoma territory in the 19th century. That latter might certainly be a fascinating movie...
Mads with Thomas Vinterberg
Thomas Vinterberg won Denmark their fourth Oscar and became the first Danish auteur to snag a Best Director nomination (the other Nordic Oscar nominees in that category were three Swedes and a Norwegian). It was a long time coming given that he was first submitted to the Oscars for his international breakthrough, The Celebration (1998) which kicked off the controversial, short-lived, much-discussed Dogme 95 manifesto that the even more famous Lars Von Trier and other filmmakers were involved in. Next up: Vinterberg has maintained an international career ever since so we imagine Hollywood will be courting him again post-Oscar season (if they haven't started already) but his next project is a Danish TV miniseries called Families Like Ours, which is perhaps not a surprise since intense and intimate family dramas are his specialty. There's an English language remake of Another Round in the works (ugh) but Vinterberg is not involved other than hopefully collecting a nice paycheck.
If you haven't watched any of Vinterberg's previous films you're in for a great discovery. My personal favourites, prior to Another Round, are The Celebration (1998), Far From the Madding Crowd (2015), and The Commune (2016) though a lot of people love The Hunt (2012), his only previously Oscar-nominated film.
David Fincher is no longer prolific. Just putting that out there up front lest people get their hopes up. It was three years between Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl and then six years until Mank (though perhaps that wait was partially due to Mindhunter on Netflix, which was superb and we're sad that there's no third season). Like a lot of A list auteurs he always has several projects in development -- currently there are 11 projects listed on IMDb that have not yet been realized and obviously most of them won't be (given the typical ratios in Hollywood) since there's been no movement for years. Next up: The furthest along of the possible projects is The Killer based on the noirish graphic novel about a professional assassin losing his mind. Michael Fassbender will star but since they're not filming yet who knows if changes are in store for this project.
Lee Isaac Chung broke through to a hopefully major career with Minari (2020). I never would have seen it coming after watching his very small and quiet debut Munyurangabo (2007) at a regional film festival in a mostly empty house but am so happy for him! Next up: like Zhao he's going from very intimate to very big on the next project, directing the live action remake of the much-loved sci-fi fantasy anime Your Name (2016) about two teenager who are mysteriously psychically connected and switch bodies.
Emerald Fennell is a multi-hyphennate powerhouse given that she writes, produces, directs, and acts... and she does all of those things for both film and television and stage now. So we imagine there's more to come all over the place given her triple-pronged recent breakthrough to the big leagues (costarring in The Crown, co-writing Killing Eve, doing everything on Promising Young Woman). Next up: this summer's world premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella in the West End which she did book-writing duties on. As for film, as far as we can tell nothing is yet set in stone for what's immediately nex. She is writing the screenplay for Warner Bros / DC superhero project Zatanna though that has no release date or director yet. Let's hope it's not too long before we get a follow up to Promising Young Woman. She definitely seems like an able multi-tasker given that this career explosion happened while she was very pregnant (giving birth to her first child three weeks after Promising Young Woman wrapped). She's handled the publicity and awards campaigning for Promising Young Woman and Cinderella duties and Zatanna signing, etcetera, while pregnant again and mothering a very small child. Superhuman!
Which of these future projects are you most excited about? Will every break out director eventually work in the superhero or supernatural genre?