Blake Lively, Shawn Levy Team for Post-Apocalyptic Thriller 'Dark Days at the Magna Carta' (Exclusive)
Blake Lively and Shawn Levy have teamed up for Dark Days at the Magna Carta, a post-apocalyptic thriller just picked up by Netflix.
Lively will star in and produce the thriller through her B for Effort production banner along with Kate Vorhoff, giving the high-profile actress a potential franchise to call her own.
Levy will produce via his prolific 21 Laps banner with partner Dan Cohen.
The project hails from rising scribe Michael Paisley, who only two years ago was working in the CAA mailroom. Paisley came up with the story and will now write the screenplay for what is envisioned as a trilogy.
Details are being kept deep in the vault but it is described as a character driven thriller set against a catastrophic event and centers on a woman going to extreme lengths to survive and save her family.
Paisley began conceptualizing the story late last year but the ideas crystalized as the pandemic began to hold in the U.S. While the story is not related to a contagion, a world-altering event is a key foil and themes of isolation and strength of family emerge.
As word got out on what he was working on, producers came knocking on his door, along with numerous virtual meetings. Ultimately, Cohen, Levy joined forces with Lively and B for Effort to bring the project to Netflix in a competitive environment.
Paisley, after leaving the mailroom, worked last year as a writer’s production assistant on Netflix fantasy series The Witcher, all the while honing his craft via specs. The 26-year old from Westfield, Indiana sold his first one, a horror thriller titled Dollhouse and set in New York’s fashion scene, to STX in November.
21 Laps has been using the Hollywood shutdown to put its nose to the grindstone and focus on projects. Magna Carta is the fourth project the company has set up with the stay at home order went into effect. The company is readying Levy’s latest directorial effort, Free Guy, which stars Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds.
Lively is repped by WME, Management 360 and attorney Jeff Bernstein. Paisley is repped by CAA and MXN.
hollywoodreporter.com