“Twisters” director Lee Isaac Chung is in talks to direct the “Ocean’s Eleven” prequel for Warner Bros. Pictures, according to an insider with knowledge of the project.
Margot Robbie is producing the project via her Lucky Chap banner.
The script is from “A Family Affair” writer Carrie Solomon. Plot details are being kept under wraps but the new film is known to be an “Ocean’s Eleven” prequel that is set in Europe in the 1960s.
Since “Ocean’s Eleven” hit theaters in 2001, the franchise has become a global sensation, spawning three more films and raking in over $1.4 billion at the global box office.
Chung’s breakout film “Minari,” which he wrote and directed, won the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at Sundance in 2020 and garnered Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice wins, along with multiple Academy, Independent Spirit, BAFTA and SAG Awards nominations. The film was named one of the ten best films of 2020 by the American Film Institute and by the National Board of Review, which also awarded him Best Original Screenplay.
Chung’s latest film, the action blockbuster, “Twisters,” had the best-ever box office opening weekend for a natural disaster film. Chung’s other projects include “Munyurangabo,” which premiered in 2007 at the Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim and episodes of “The Mandalorian” and “Skeleton Crew.”
He is set to direct the upcoming feature adaptation of the sci-fi novel “Traveler” by Joseph Eckert. A son of Korean immigrants, Chung grew up on a small farm in rural Arkansas and then attended Yale University before abandoning plans for medical school to earn his MFA in film studies at the University of Utah.
Chung is repped by CAA and Jackoway Austen.
Deadline first reported the news.
