Andrew Stanton In Early Talks To Direct ‘Chairman Spaceman’ For Searchlight & Simon Kinberg’s Genre Films

EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Oscar winner Andrew Stanton is in early talks we hear to direct Chairman Spaceman for Searchlight Pictures and Simon Kinberg’s Genre Films.

Chairman Spaceman is based on Thomas Pierce’s New Yorker short story of the same name, and it’s the second piece from the magazine that the writer is adapting with Genre for a big screen take. Back in August, Deadline broke that Netflix won Pierce’s New Yorker short story Tardy Man package, Pyros, which has Reese Witherspoon attached to star and Kinberg’s Genre Films producing.

Pierce’s Chairman Spaceman is set in the near future, and follows a notorious corporate raider who renounces his worldly wealth. To redeem himself, he signs up for an interplanetary mission to colonize the greater solar system. The story follows his final days on Earth and the fallout when the trip doesn’t go as planned. Pierce is adapting his own short story for the big screen. Kinberg is producing alongside Genre Films’ Audrey Chon.

Stanton is a Pixar vet, his first feature film project being A Bug’s Life as co-director before continuing on to direct Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and Finding Dory. Stanton has been nominated for six Oscars, winning Best Animated Feature Film in 2004 for Finding Nemo and again in 2009 for Wall-E. He was also an executive producer and co-writer on Disney/Pixar’s recent Animated Pic Oscar winner Toy Story 4 which grossed over $1.07 billion. Stanton recently directed an episode of the Amazon futuristic limited drama series Tales From the Loop, “Echo Sphere”, and his previous TV directing credits include Strangers Things, Legion and Better Call Saul. 

In recent months, Genre Films has been using this time to develop films so that they’re ready to shoot. Deadline told you first in recent days that Kinberg’s spec script Here Comes the Flood was won by Netflix in a ferocious auction for mid-seven figures with major directors and actors already circling it. Genre has David Ayer writing and directing a remake of The Dirty Dozen at Warner Bros. Also Genre has at Apple TV the untitled Kinberg/David Weil character-driven genre drama which has been billed as being in the spirit of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.

Stanton is repped by UTA and Ziffren Brittenham. Kinberg is repped by CAA and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein.