If you know David Robert Mitchell’s two previous films, the breakout indie horror It Follows and the divisive neo-noir Under the Silver Lake, he’s probably the last director to do a superhero movie. That is unless it’s something he came up with himself, and he can play around with the genre in ways Marvel and the other big studios never would. Thankfully, MGM is going to afford him that opportunity.
THR reports Mitchell will team up with MGM for Heroes & Villains, a film which he will write and direct. The plot is being kept under wraps but is expected to be a new take on the superhero story. Casting is expected to begin shortly.
Mitchell was seen as a rising star immediately following It Follows, one of the first wave of the new generation of small-budget horrors. He followed that up with Under the Silver Lake, which got killed after its Cannes debut in 2018, leading to a troublesome post-production that delayed its release. Eventually, the film went straight-to-VOD and was polarizing, to say the least. Some of my friends think it’s a modern-day classic. I know others who think it’s trash. I can’t say either way since I’ve never seen it.
Whatever he’s going to do with superheroes, I definitely want to see it. His use of mood and music is always top-notch and that’s something that he could definitely bring to the well-worn genre. There’s a part of me that really hopes he reconnects with Andrew Garfield, too. The ex-Spidey actor jumping back into superheroes? Yeah, I’d be down for that.