Steve Carell And Gore Verbinski Hooking Up For A Big Fat Thriller

The Lone Ranger did not set the world on fire, but its lack of success isn’t enough to keep a director like Gore Verbinski down. Need proof? The guy now has not one but three films going down at New Regency.

According to Deadline, the first of these three films - which all aim to be made in quick succession - will be a paranoid thriller starring former comedian and probably future cinematic Penguin, Steve Carell. Whatever the movie ends up being called, it comes from a script written by The Pursuit of Happyness and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty writer, Steve Conrad.

As for the other two projects, one will be A Cure for Wellness, which Deadline describes as an “elevated horror” film. I guess that means the killer is a really tall person. The other film currently has the title Passengers, and is supposedly a really big action comedy.

We don’t know how Johnny Depp will play into all this or really how big these films will be budget-wise. But it’s nice to know that Verbinski will continue directing for a while. I like the guy, even if his films almost go out of their way to be unnecessarily bloated. They also tend to err on the weird side, so I’m more likely to forgive their excess.