The Hollywood Reporter has learned that 2x Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break; The Hurt Locker) has finally found her next project. She'll team up with screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park; Spider-Man; Mission: Impossible) for the sci-fi thriller Aurora, which is being developed for Netflix.
The film is an adaptation of Koepp's upcoming novel of the same name, which is scheduled to hit stores on June 7. He previously made his novel debut with the sci-fi thriller Cold Storage in 2019.
The brief plot synopsis reads,
"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..."
While Netflix stresses that the film is still in the very early stages of development, the production budget is expected to be well north of $100 million, meaning they're, at least, preparing for this to be one of their biggest upcoming releaes and it's likely Bigelow will sign a big name star to headline the feature.
This would be Bigelow's first directing project since 2017's Detroit. Her past credits also include Point Break, the Academy Award-winning The Hurt Locker, and Zero Dark Thirty.