Joe Johnston next step after directing this summer’s smash hit Captain America is… backwards? Budget-wise that is. The director of Jumanji, Jurassic Park III and The Wolfman is making his first low budget film since 2001’s critically-acclaimed coming of age story October Sky with Not Safe for Work (which we suspect was green lit based on the title alone), a new thriller budgeted at a scant $2.5 million.
It’s interesting that this move from big budget to microbudget feels so rebellious. Traditional Hollywood “wisdom” dictates that directors work their way up from independent, or at least lower-budgeted features and then once they crack into the big leagues, they stay there. Sure they may retreat a bit to do a passion project, but doing a genre thriller about a paralegal trapped in an office with a killer out to destroy evidence for a large corporation for such a small sum could be indicative of the industry’s shift towards making smaller films for greater financial rewards. That would translate to Johnston as well: according to Hollywood Reporter, he’s taking a hefty chunk of the back end profits, which could be quite sizable given the film’s tiny price tag.
Johnston is still contracted to direct one other film for Marvel Studios, but not necessarily Captain America 2, which we haven’t heard a peep from recently. We’ll keep you posted.
CraveOnline will be back with more Not Safe for Work news after we… Hey, that reminds us, did you catch our recent porn star interviews?
