Alexandre Aja to write but not direct Dead by Daylight movie for Atomic Monster and Blumhouse
Three years have passed since it was announced that James Wan’s company Atomic Monster and Jason Blum’s company Blumhouse Productions, which recently merged, would be making a feature film adaptation of Behaviour Interactive’s global multiplayer horror video game Dead by Daylight – and now, the project has finally found its writers! One of the writers is no surprise: it’s David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who has previously worked with Wan on the Conjuring sequels and both of his Aquaman movies. The other writer, though, is quite unexpected. The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that Johnson-McGoldrick is working on the script with Alexandre Aja, who is best known for being the director of Haute Tension, The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Piranha 3D, and Crawl, among other films. The twist here is that Aja will not be directing Dead by Daylight, so the producers are still looking for someone to take the helm.
Background
Dead by Daylight is a multiplayer (4vs1) horror game where one player takes on the role of the savage Killer, and the other four players play as Survivors, trying to escape the Killer and avoid being caught, tortured and killed. Survivors play in third-person and have the advantage of better situational awareness. Since its launch in 2016, Dead by Daylight has reached over 50 million players worldwide, with two million players stepping into The Fog every day. The game features a vast universe where classic horror survives and thrives. Having welcomed iconic characters from TV, film, and gaming, it’s only fitting that the franchise expands to new horizons to tell its story.
James Wan, Jason Blum, and Behaviour Interactive’s Stephen Mulrooney are producing the Dead by Daylight film. Behaviour Interactive’s Remi Racine, Atomic Monster’s Michael Clear and Judson Scott, Blumhouse’s Ryan Turek, and Striker Entertainment’s Russell Binder serve as executive producers.
Aja has never made a movie with Wan, Blum, or Johnson-McGoldrick before.
Statements
Blum provided the following statement: “What David and Alexandre bring to Dead by Daylight is a rare balance of character driven storytelling and relentless genre intensity. Drawing from survival horror and psychological terror, their work establishes a world where fear is not just experienced, but earned. It is a cinematic blueprint designed to attract a director who can elevate that vision through performance and scale.“
Mulrooney added, “Alexandre and David are two modern masters of horror, and their script celebrates a dark distinction, Dead by Daylight is a game, its world is a nightmare. We look forward to working with a director who appreciates the depth of their story, and cannot wait to see their visceral vision brought to life.“
Aja
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Aja will not be directing Dead by Daylight because he recently signed on to direct the shark thriller Under Paris 2 for Netflix. There’s also some degree of hope that he might be able to make the alligator thriller sequel Crawl 2 sometime soon.
This isn’t the first time Aja will have written something that he didn’t direct, as he worked with Grégory Levasseur to script Maniac (2012) and P2. He also produced those films, but they were directed by Franck Khalfoun.
What do you think of Alexandre Aja teaming with David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick to write the Dead by Daylight movie? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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