DreamWorks is giving Alex Kurtzman, half of the writing/producing duo Kurtzman-and-(Roberto) Orci, his first shot at directing — and it’s a drama.
Welcome to People, co-written with Orci and Jody Lambert, the documentarian who made the 2008 documentary Of All the Things, is expected to cast quickly, Vulture reported.
Per Vulture, the story follows a struggling twentysomething man who, after flying home to LA for the funeral of his estranged record-producer father, discovers that the will stipulates he must deliver $150,000 in cash to a 30-year-old alcoholic sister he never knew existed. Determined to keep the money to solve his own problems, he’s nonetheless fascinated by his unknown kin and makes contact with the sister and her son without revealing who he really is.
Kurtzman is said to have pulled the 6-year-old script out of a drawer when he was starting to be offered the kinds of big-budget movies he and Orci have made their names writing. Keen to step out of a stereotype, Kurtzman made his case and found Steven Spielberg and his studio receptive, Vulture said.
Kurtzman and Orci are producing via their DreamWorks-based Paper Products. Bobby Cohen is also producing, said the Heat Vision blog.
