Tis the post-season to wonder about next season... and the seasons after that. While Will Packer, ABC, and the Academy continue to try to dull our love for Oscars, they could never dull our love for the movies themselves. So let's look at what this year's most celebrated filmmakers are up to next. We'll take them in alpha order...
PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON
PTA, who turns 52 this June, has 11 nominations to his name but no Oscar yet since he just lost his Licorice Pizza directing and writing bids. Generally he takes quite a long time between films though he tends to stay busy inbetwen directing music videos (the latest is Haim's "Lost Track"), fatherhood since he and Maya Rudolph have four children between the ages of 10 and 17 (one assumes that keeps them busy) and, we hope, tinkering on script ideas. So who knows!?
Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson in This Sceptred Isle. Photo ©2021-Sky
KENNETH BRANAGH
Branagh, who is 62 and just won his first Oscar for Belfast, after 8 nominations, is quite prolific. He's already released a movie this year, in fact, with Death on the Nile (though it was long delayed due to COVID-19 and Armie Hammer scandal). He has three projects in development at the moment including a Bee Gees biopic (!). Of course he's also a celebrated actor so before his next gig behind the camera we'll see him on screens large and small. He's co-starring in Chris Nolan's atomic bomb drama Oppenheimer (due in 2023) and he'll play Boris Johnson in the TV series This Sceptred Isle (2022). He's unrecognizable in the still above!
JANE CAMPION
The 67 year old legend -- the only woman nominated for Best Director twice -- is hot off her second Oscar win (this time for Best Director of The Power of the Dog). But since that was her first film in over a decade you can count on her vanishing for a bit again as she is prone to do. That said, she did executive produce a film in post-production at the moment with the odd title of Typist Artist Pirate King which is directed by Carol Morley (Out of the Blue).
A promotional image of Guillermo del Toro and a Pinocchio puppet. © Netflix
GUILLERMO DEL TORO
The 57 year-old Oscar winning director (The Shape of Water) had his second Best Picture nominee this season with Nightmare Alley. He is one of those filmmakers who is constantly announcing new projects though not all of them see the light of day. IMDb Pro lists 18 projects in developments at the moment from things that are merely "optioned" to things he's producing rather than directing. His next film (which he is co-directing with the animation director Mark Gustafson, who previously helped Wes Anderson on Fantastic Mr Fox) is yet another version of Pinocchio. This one is for Netflix and is due in December 2022. If you're wondering why there are so very many Pinocchio movies in the world that's because, like Peter Pan, it's in the public domain (as many more famous stories should be but Disney has been trying to destroy the very concept of public domain with their many legal maneuvers over the past few decades)
REINALDO MARCUS GREEN
Green, who is just 40 years old (that's young in director years) is coming off his biggest success with King Richard. He is currently working on the HBO series We Own This City (a drama about the Baltimore Police Department) which will begin airing on April 25th. His next feature film will be a Bob Marley biopic which is not expected until 2024 which seems like a long time given that it's already in pre-production. Kingsley Ben-Adir, who so memorably played Malcolm X in Regina King's One Night in Miami, has the leading role.
MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL
While the Oscar for Adapted Screenplay eluded her, she managed to pick up quite a few prizes for her debut work as a director, The Lost Daughter. Unfortunately she has no known projects in development as either an actress (we don't want her to quit since she's so brilliant at it) or as a fledgling director but perhaps that will change soon. In the meantime she's serving as executive producer on the true story Farnsworth House about a famous architect (Ralph Fiennes) and his client (Elizabeth Debicki).
RYÛSUKE HAMAGUCHI
The 43 year old Japanese auteur behind last year's biggest critical sensation, Drive My Car, is prolific. His other 2021 movie Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy will be streaming exclusively on the Criterion Channel in April. He's currently in pre-production on the next feature, Our Apprenticeship, about a Japanese girl studying theatre in Paris.
SIAN HEDER
The 44 year-old behind this season's Best Picture winner CODA, has two directing/writing gigs in development. Last summer IndieWire reported that she was helming a biopic on disability activist Judith Heumann but IMDb suggests that project is still only "optioned" rather than in active production though it's possible things have changed since January (when they last updated the project on IMDb. Regardless whichever film she's doing next will surely get a boost to capitalize on the Oscar journey. We'll see.
ADAM MCKAY
The always busy writer/director/producer behind Don't Look Up turns 54 in a couple of weeks. He has (gulp) 46 projects in some stage of development (though some are only pitches at this point). Next up, though, is Bad Blood for Apple. We've already had two very recent projects about shady entrepeneur Elizabeth Holmes, one documentary (The Inventor, reviewed) and one miniseries (The Dropout, reviewed), but this one is a feature and Jennifer Lawrence is attached to star.
PAOLO SORRENTINO
The 51 year-old Italian Oscar favourite (The Great Beauty, Hand of God) executive produced the current series My Brilliant Friend. His next directorial project is going to be in English and looks to either be a biopic about the late famous talent agent Sue Mengers (Jennifer Lawrence is attached), or something called Mob Girl about a mafia informat in NYC. Neither are in pre-production yet, though, so it might be a while.
STEVEN SPIELBERG
Consider West Side Story the volley for a possible spike at the very next Oscars. The world's most famous movie director, who just turned 75, is already in Post-Production on his latest. The Universal Picture's film The Fabelmans is auto-fiction about his childhood (a hot recurrent trend for auteurs -- see recent examples like Pain and Glory and Belfast). It's due for release at Thanksgiving. Gabriel LaBelle has the leading role though he's not playing Steven but "Sammy". The adults in young Spielberg's life are played by Paul Dano, Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen. The crew is the usual Spielberg collaborators so expect some consecutive Oscar nominations next season.
JOACHIM TRIER
Norway's greatest auteur, 48 year-old Joachim Trier, had his biggest success to date with his existential romantic comedy The Worst Person in the World (which deserved so many more Oscar nominations! It's out silver medalist of the year). Trier has no announced projects yet. He generally takes a few years between pictures though so we might not hear back from him until, say, 2024 or 2025. Meanwhile if you've already fallen for his filmography (if you haven't you should), may we recommend you check out the solo films of his main creative partner Eskil Vogt who has also directed two very interesting films (Blind 2014, and The Innnocents, 2021)
DENIS VILLENEUVE
Canada's current most successful director, who is 54, just led several members of his team to Oscar wins for Dune (2021). They're currently in pre-production on Dune Part Two. Denis is also in preproduction for the miniseries The Son which will star Jake Gyllenhaal (they previously worked together on the trippy double drama Enemy). On the side he'll also executive produce a tv series called Dune: The Sisterhood about the secretive Bene Gesserit order. So expect 2023/2024 to be a very big season for Villeneuve as he could be up for both Emmys and Oscars. Beyond those two projects he has a Cleopatra project and an adaptation of the sci-fi novel Rendezvous with Rama on the backburner at the moment.
Which of these future projects are you most excited about?