Ari Aster, A24 reteam for untitled Michael R. Jackson horror project

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

The next directorial effort from Hereditary (watch it HERE) and Midsommar (watch that one HERE) director Ari Aster is going to be a film called Disappointment Blvd., which is set to star Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan, and Kylie Rogers… but it doesn't sound like that's one we'll be covering here on Arrow in the Head, because it's described as being "an intimate, decades-spanning portrait of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time". It seems Aster is stepping out of the horror genre for a moment – but only as director. While working on Disappointment Blvd., Aster has signed on to produce an untitled horror film for A24, the distributor of all three of his movies.

The untitled horror project comes from the mind of Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Circle winning playwright Michael R. Jackson, who sold the pitch to A24. Aster will be producing the film alongside Lars Knudsen, under their Square Peg banner.

Zero plot details have been revealed about the project, which is said to be in "early development". So for now your interest in it, or lack thereof, will have to be entirely based on the names involved.

Jackson won the aforementioned awards for the musical A Strange Loop, which premiered in 2019 and tells the story of 

Usher (coincidentally named the same as his day-job as an usher for The Lion King on Broadway), a fat, Black, gay writer who tries to navigate the heteronormative white world. He is backed by a six-person all-black-queer ensemble who voice his inner thoughts as he begrudgingly ghost writes a new Tyler Perry stage play.

The playwright is also developing a musical called White Girl in Danger, "partially inspired by classic daytime soaps and '90s-era Lifetime movies". Personally, I'd be happy to hear this A24 project was inspired by '90s-era Lifetime movies as well, but there's no indication of that at this point.

We'll keep you updated on the A24 project as it moves forward. Hopefully it won't be long before we hear a plot synopsis and a title.

It was recently announced that Aster is executive producing a stop-motion short film called The Bones for Chilean filmmakers Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña. (Read about it HERE.) That will premiere sometime in the second half of 2021.