Star Wars Episodes 7 and 9 director JJ Abrams is moving into the superhero genre, with the announcement that he’s producing a new film called The Heavy, which will be directed by Julius Avery.
The pair worked together on the supernatural World War 2 film Overlord, which is to be released later in 2018. Overlord is a story about US paratroopers fighting against paranormal forces in a Nazi-occupied town, rumours have circulated that this will somehow tie into the Cloverfield setting, however Abrams clarified recently that Overlord has no connection to Cloverfield.
Abrams is reportedly very happy with Avery’s work on Overlord, and head-hunted him specifically to take on this new superhero project. The Heavy is described as a superhero thriller, though details on the film are slim at the moment. It’s easy to imagine Abrams wanting to do something different with the genre to set it apart from the huge amount of superhero content already out there in cinemas.
Avery also directed the Ewan McGregor starring film Son of a Gun set in Australia, released back in 2014. The Heavy is schedule to go into production later in 2018.
