Thread: James Wan producing “Back to the Future meets Aliens” film

Jeremy Slater, creator of the The Exorcist television series and head writer on the upcoming Marvel / Disney+ show Moon Knight, is reportedly blending one of the most popular movies of 1985 with one of the most popular movies of 1986 for a project called Thread, which is in early development at Sony. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but Thread is described as being like “Back to the Future meets Aliens.”

Slater is writing and will be directing the film, which genre regular James Wan will be producing through his company Atomic Monster, alongside Michael Clear. Judson Scott and Melissa Russell will be serving as executive producers.

Although we know next to nothing about Thread at this point, it has already caught our attention and captured our imagination with that “Back to the Future meets Aliens” description. If it’s even half as good as either of those movies, we have something cool to look forward to here.

In addition to The Exorcist and Moon Knight, Slater has written The Lazarus Effect, Pet, the 2015 version of Fantastic Four, and the 2017 Death Note movie. He’s also co-creator of the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy. He doesn’t have any directing credits on his résumé.

Wan has directed Saw, Dead Silence, Death Sentence, Insidious, The Conjuring, Insidious: Chapter 2, Furious 7, The Conjuring 2, Aquaman, and Malignant. He just wrapped filming Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. He’s also a prolific producer, with his producing credits including the Conjuring Universe spin-offs, Lights Out, the 2020 version of Mortal Kombat, the 2019 Swamp Thing series, the MacGyver reboot, There’s Someone Inside Your House, Archive 81, and the I Know What You Did Last Summer Amazon series. Coming up he has the Stephen King adaptations Salem’s Lot and The Tommyknockers, plus the Train to Busan remake The Last Train to New York and a cinematic update of Knight Rider.