Jason Bateman might be ready to orchestrate a heist.

The actor/director is reportedly in early talks to direct Here Comes the Flood, a heist film written by X-Men franchise writer/producer Simon Kinberg. The movie is for Netflix, where Bateman has been working on the streaming drama Ozark; earlier this week, he earned his third straight Emmy nomination for his work on that series.

Deadline brings the news about Bateman potentially directing Here Comes the Flood, which the site describes as “an elevated, character-driven love-story heist movie, with the heist playing out in increments.” Like a lot of the /Film readership, I am a sucker for a good heist movie, so this sounds very much up my alley.

The negotiations are still in the early days and Bateman is currently only in talks to direct the film, although if a deal is made, he could also end up acting in it. Apparently there are several “juicy roles” that are up for grabs, and with a premise like that, I don’t doubt it.

The only hesitation I have is that Simon Kinberg wrote the script. He’s written some good stuff before – Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes are fun, and I really enjoyed X-Men: Days of Future Past at the time – but his filmography is also littered with some pretty bad stuff, including X-Men: Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix, and Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four. In order to stay positive, the example I always think about in times like these is Craig Mazin, who wrote trash like The Hangover sequels and Identity Thief before making one of my favorite shows of the century with Chernobyl. Hopefully with Bateman at the helm, Here Comes the Flood will live up to its incredible-sounding premise.

Netflix reportedly paid in the mid-seven figures for the script, outbidding several other companies and eventually locking it down. For Bateman, this will be his third feature film behind the camera after the foul-mouthed 2013 comedy Bad Words and the 2015 family comedy/mystery The Family Fang. Since then, he’s become an Emmy-winning director for his work on Ozark, and he helmed two episodes of The Outsider, HBO’s recent Stephen King adaptation. In the past year, he’s been attached to direct a remake of Clue and a Panic Room-style thriller called Shut In, but it’s unclear if those projects are still moving forward in the COVID-19 era.

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