Phil Lord and Chris Miller have a reputation for turning unlikely source material into box-office gold, as they did with 21 Jump Street, its followup 22 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, and—to a lesser extent—Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. So naturally, movie studios are eager for Lord and Miller to keep doing that, please.
The studios in question are Warner Bros. and Sony, which are both eyeing Lord and Miller for upcoming projects, according to Indiewire. Warner Bros. wants to enlist the duo to director the big screen version of The Flash, a superhero film that will fit into the D.C. “Justice League” universe which also features Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice and will star Ezra Miller as the titular speedster.
Sony, meanwhile, is looking to bring Lord and Miller into the Ghostbusters cinematic universe, which currently includes the upcoming Paul Feig-helmed, female-driven reboot as well as a male-driven version that could potentially star former Lord/Miller collaborators Chris Pratt and Channing Tatum. (The Russo brothers were originally set to direct Ghostbusters For Men, but now that they’ve got The Avengers: Infinity War on their plate, they might be too busy).
Lord and Miller previously turned down the chance to work on a Ghostbusters project back when it was designed as a more explicit sequel with the original Ghostbusters serving as mentors to a new generation. However, Indiewire speculates that now that the project has a little more flexibility, the duo might be willing to reconsider. When they turned down Ghostbusters 3, Lord said, “I think that there’s a good Ghostbusters movie out there. It’s such a fun franchise. Obviously, we don’t have the same attitude as people who hate stuff before it’s even made. It’s a fun idea and it’s a fun world and I think it will work.”
Of course, these are all just rumors at the moment. The only thing we know for sure is that the duo are currently producing Will Forte’s The Last Man On Earth as well as writing The Lego Movie Sequel and producing two other Lego spin-offs, although they won’t be directing any of them.
But if Lord and Miller want to stick to the franchise game, there’s a smorgasbord of options to choose from: Marvel is making movies until the cows come home, The Fast And The Furious will probably keep getting faster and more furious, Star Wars still has a few open directorial slots, and Transformers is creating a whole collective just for sequel/spin-off building. On the other hand, if Lord and Miller prefer to make an original film, they better do so quickly before the world forgets what those are.