Like Christopher Nolan, JJ Abrams is renowned for keeping his cards close to his chest and not really telling anyone what he’s planning (to the point where you half feel he’d like to keep refusing to confirm anything even once a movie is released).
One of his mystery projects at his Bad Robot production company is going by the working title Zanbato, which Deadline describes as involving ‘Japanese history and robotics: “swashbuckling robots with swords”‘. Intrigued? Well, we certainly are. Sadly though, in true Abrams style, that’s the extent of the info there is on it.
Francis Lawrence was attached to direct, but he’s no longer involved. However Fringe executive producers Monica Breen and Alison Schapker have been hired to do a rewrite of the script. Female writing teams in Hollywood are rare, and there are even fewer working in sci-fi, so it’ll be interesting to see if they have a different take on things.
Abrams of course is also involved in Fringe, and so is, as usual, keeping things in the family.