Latest in Mark L. Smith

Quentin Tarantino was close to directing a bloodier Star Trek movie but opted out of making it because he didn’t want that to be his last film. Writer Mark L. Smith is now opening up about the hesitation Tarantino had about directing the fourth installment of the film franchise that started with J.J…

EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment are meeting with directors hoping for a spring start on Twisters, a big-scale sequel to the 1996 storm-chasing blockbuster. Universal and Warner Bros are co-financing, with Universal taking the creative lead on the picture. Frank Marshall is…

EXCLUSIVE: In a seven-figure deal, New Regency Pictures has preemptively acquired film rights to the Peter Heller bestselling novel The Dog Stars, a package that comes with a completed script by Mark L. Smith, whose script work includes The Boys in the Boat, The Revenant and Midnight Sky. New Regency, Smith and Cliff…

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has landed The 39 Steps, a limited series star vehicle for Benedict Cumberbatch. Edward Berger, who previously teamed with Cumberbatch on Patrick Melrose, will direct and The Revenant scribe Mark L. Smith will write the series. It’s an update of the classic thriller novel by John Buchan that was…

EXCLUSIVE: Benedict Cumberbatch will star in the Anonymous Content limited series update of the classic thriller The 39 Steps. Series is created by The Revenant scribe Mark L. Smith and directed by Edward Berger. Berger teamed previously with Cumberbatch on Patrick Melrose, and was a director and executive producer of…

EXCLUSIVE: Looks like Paramount’s plan to next make the Star Trek movie that Noah Hawley wrote and plans to direct has been put on pause for a moment. New film chief Emma Watts, who managed many a franchise at Fox, is in the process of figuring out which way to go. The pause on the Hawley project, which had been in…

EXCLUSIVE: HBO Max is developing an adaptation of The Hellfire Club, the first novel by CNN's Jake Tapper, with The Revenant co-writer Mark L. Smith. The deal marks a nice bit of corporate synergy at WarnerMedia with Tapper, one of its news channel's most high-profile anchors on shows such as The Lead and The State of…

Netflix is ramping up its star power. The streamer said Monday that two-time Oscar winner George Clooney is attached to direct and star in a feature based on Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2016 novel Good Morning, Midnight, which was adapted for screen by The Revenant scribe Mark L. Smith. Clooney and producing partner Grant…

EXCLUSIVE: In what shapes up to be one of the hot titles in the upcoming Berlin sales market, Black Bear Pictures will finance and produce with Anonymous Content the Morten Tyldum-directed dramatic thriller The Marsh King’s Daughter. Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander has come attached to play the lead role…

EXCLUSIVE: After Deadline this week revealed that Quentin Tarantino pitched a Star Trek film to JJ Abrams and Paramount, the whole thing is moving at warp speed. Tarantino met for hours in a writers room with Mark L. Smith, Lindsey Beer, Drew Pearce and Megan Amram. They kicked around ideas and one of them will get…

EXCLUSIVE: Suzanne Lyons' Snowfall Films and producer Robert Deege have teamed with Bleiberg Entertainment to produce Hardcourt, the latest feature from The Revenant scribe Mark L. Smith. The project is described as a psychological thriller in the vein of Gone Girl and Basic Instinct. Story follows a respected college…

EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures reeled in a big one last night. In competitive bidding, the studio closed a deal for Conquest, a package for a star vehicle that reunites The Revenant star Leonardo DiCaprio with Mark L. Smith, who scripted The Revenant with director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. John Davis is sole…