I Robot and Dark City helmer Alex Proyas hasn’t had a huge amount of luck since the release of the Nicolas Cage starrer Knowing. His planned Dracula: Year Zero was cancelled by Universal before being resurrected with a different director, and his take on Paradise Lost got to the point where the cast was almost full and production offices had opened, before Warner pulled the plug and killed it off earlier this year.
Now he’ll be crossing his fingers the same fate doesn’t befall The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, which Deadline reports is the new movie he’s working on. Based on a 1942 Robert Heinlein novella, the story follows the title character, who one evening realises that he has can’t remember what he does during the day and therefore has no idea what he does for a living. He also notices dried blood under his fingernails and begins to suspect that he’s involved in a particularly sinister profession. To get to the truth, he hires a husband and wife detective team to follow him during the day.
It’s back to sci-fi noir for Proyas then, the genre he made his name with thanks to Dark City. In fact, Proyas has said that Jonathan Hoag was one of the main inspirations for that movie, so things are slightly coming full circle for his. The director has actually wanted to make a film based on the novella for some time, and is now pushing forward with it in order to fill the gap left by the cancellation of Paradise Lost.
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