Kathryn Bigelow Returns, Teams With David Koepp, Netflix for Thriller ‘Aurora’ (Exclusive)

Kathryn Bigelow is heading to Netflix.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker, who hasn’t made a movie since 2017’s race drama, Detroit, has set up her latest feature project, titled Aurora, at the streamer.

The project adapts the upcoming book by David Koepp, the veteran screenwriter who counts Jurassic Park, the first Mission: Impossible movie, and Spider-Man among his numerous credits. Koepp will write the screenplay for the project.

Producing are Bigelow’s longtime producing partner Greg Shapiro and Gavin Polone, whose long history with Koepp includes producing the writer and sometimes director’s movies such as Stir of Echoes and Secret Window.

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Aurora follows the events of a solar storm that knocks out most of humanity’s power grids and focuses on the personal story of a divorced mother who must now do everything she can to protect her teenager and her estranged brother, a wealthy Silicon Valley CEO who has built a luxurious bunker in the desert for just such a disaster.

It is unclear how the book will translate to the screen, but insiders describe the story as following characters who are coping with the collapse of the social order, set against a catastrophic worldwide power crisis.

The book is due out from HarperCollins June 7 and has blurbs from author Stephen King, who calls it a “real page-turner,” and screenwriter Scott Frank, the creator of The Queen’s Gambit, who enthuses, “There’s a reason David Koepp is the most successful screenwriter of all time. It’s because he’s one of the greatest storytellers of all time. Aurora is up there with his best: scary, funny, and thought-provoking.”

The deal came together over the weekend, according to sources, and also features a progress-to-production timeline, which could make this Bigelow’s next movie. Sources also say the project is eyeing a budget north of $100 million. Netflix had no comment, but insiders cautioned the project was still in the development stages.

CAA Media Finance brokered the deal with Netflix.

Bigelow, repped by CAA and Sloane Offer, made a name for herself as a filmmaker working in what was traditionally seen as male spheres, the action and sci-fi genres. Bringing in a certain amount of grittiness and grounding to her proceedings, she directed the 1980s cult vampire movie Near Dark and the 1991 Keanu Reeves-Patrick Swayze classic, Point Break. Strange Days was a sci-fi crime drama that saw her work with her ex-husband, James Cameron.

Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker swept the 2010 Academy Awards, where she became the first woman to win the best director statuette, one of six the film won, including best picture. The tense war drama also earned star Jeremy Renner a nomination for best actor. Her 2013 thriller, Zero Dark Thirty, told of the hunt for terrorist Osama bin Laden and earned her a best picture nomination.

Her last film, Detroit, which focused on the Motor City’s riots in the late 1960s, starred John Boyega and Anthony Mackie, among others.

Koepp is coming off the HBO Max debut of Kimi, the thriller he wrote that starred Zoë Kravitz and was directed by Steven Soderbergh. Aurora is his second novel. He is repped by CAA and Myman Greenspan.