With Hollwod’s fascination with 3D at the moment, it’s almost surprising it’s taken until now for someone to come forward with the idea of making an earthquake based disaster epic in three-dimensions (if you ignore Brad Bird’s long stalled film about the 1908 San Francisco quake). However now New Line is developing San Andreas 3D, which will rip apart the famous California fault line and cause some major mayhem.
THR reports that Journey 2 helmer Brad Peyton has just been hired to direct the movie, adding it to a slate that already includes a third Journey movie (which is likely to take a trip to the moon) and a live-action film based on the DC Comics character Lobo. Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore wrote the San Andreas script, with Allan Loeb (Rock of Ages, The Dilemma, Just Go With It) brought in to do a re-write. The film will have a budget of approximately $100 million.
Earthquake films always have the potential to be fun, but Warner and New Line seem to be betting big on Peyton being a major new talent. While Journey 2 hit is big, it’s still early to say whether Peyton can follow that up with more successes.