For his first feature film since One Direction: This Is Us, Morgan Spurlock has chosen a group of subjects with considerably more body hair: New York City’s rat population. Spurlock has partnered with the production company behind Blackfish on the previously announced Rats NYC, based on Robert Sullivan’s book, Rats: Observations On The History And Habitat Of The City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitant, to tell the story of the ubiquitous vermin. Spurlock says of his rodent inspiration, “As a New Yorker, I’ve had a two decade long love/hate affair with rats. We’ve all seen them, and we all live with them, we just don’t want to know we’re living with them.” As to the tone of the movie, it doesn’t appear to be about a cute rat with big culinary dreams, because he also says, “This movie is going to be a modern day horror film—it will make you squirm, scream and jump out of your chair. You may not like rats, but you’ll love this movie.” (Coincidentally, this was also the tag line to One Direction: This Is Us.)
Shooting for Rats NYC will begin in January, so the rats should be pretty easy to catch on film, as they will still be sluggish and fat from gorging over the holidays.