Sandra Bullock to Star in Netflix Apocalypse Movie Bird Box

Sandra Bullock will be the latest A-list acquisition for one of Netflix’s high-profile projects. The 2001 The Blind Side Best Actress Oscar winner (and co-star of next year’s female ensemble heist film Ocean’s Eight,) will headline the Netfilix-exclusive post-apocalyptic movie Bird Box, an adaptation of the 2014 novel of the same name by Josh Malerman, depicting a nightmarish world overrun by a mysterious madness.

The casting coup of landing Sandra Bullock in this film exclusive for the streaming giant (reported by THR,) is the result of handiwork by Scott Stuber, who, back in March, landed the job as Netflix’s chief of film content. He was reportedly developing Bird Box at his previous job at Universal through his Bluegrass Films company, eventually importing the project over to his current company Netflix.

Bullock’s role in Bird Box will presumably be the book’s protagonist Malorie, a mother of two young children – a boy and a girl – who is desperately trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world that was razed four years earlier by a massive, mysterious force that incites a homicidal madness in people. However, she must take her family on a perilous journey to safety amongst a group of survivors who helped her in the past. That trek, however, requires trained ears, since this ruined world carries deadly consequences when looking at the wrong thing. The enormous odyssey notably includes a 20-mile downriver run in a rowboat while blindfolded.

At the helm for Bird Box is Danish director Susanne Bier, who, after fielding films released in her native country, made English-language impact with films such as 2006’s Mads Mikkelsen-starring After the Wedding and 2007’s Halle Berry/Benicio Del Toro-starring Things We Lost in the Fire and the 2014 Jennifer Lawrence/Bradley Cooper-starring romantic drama Serena. However, Bier achieved small screen acclaim as the director of the internationally-released 2016 event series adaptation of John le Carré’s mystery crime novel The Night Manager, for which she won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Directing.

However, the accolades-armed personnel don’t stop there, since Bier will work off a screenplay, adapting Josh Malerman’s novel, by Eric Heisserer, the writer of the Oscar-nominated 2016 sci-fi smash Arrival. Heisserer also wrote the 2016 horror film Lights Out, the 2013 action thriller Hours (one of Paul Walker’s last roles,) and the 2011 prequel/reboot The Thing. – Dylan Clark, Chris Morgan and Clayton Townsend are attached as producers.

Bird Box is reportedly set to commence production in August. Netflix has yet to set a release date.

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