JJ Abrams Announces His New Movie, And It's Completely Different

Star Wars director JJ Abrams' next project is taking audiences to the Wild West. The director's first new movie since his Bad Robot label signed with Warner Bros. for $250 million is a supernatural thriller in a Western setting called "The Pinkerton," according to reports.

The script was written by Daniel Casey and acquired by Warner Bros. for JJ Abrams and his team at Bad Robot to work on. It's unclear what exact role Abrams himself has on The Pinkerton. There is also no word on who will star in the movie or when it will release; it's very early days.

The official description of the film is being kept a secret, but The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline suggest that it will be a "supernatural revenge-western hybrid."

The movie will presumably be related to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which is a group that played a major role in American law enforcement in the Wild West in the late 1800s. The US government hired Pinkerton agents to track down people like Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid. The Pinkertons also are said to have stopped a plot to kill Abraham Lincoln during his presidential run. The group still exists today, and they sued Rockstar Games over Red Dead Redemption 2's depiction of them.

Daniel Casey is the writer of the Fast & Furious movie F9, which is due for release later t his year. He also has worked with Abrams before, as he helped out with a re-write for 10 Cloverfield Lane, which Abrams produced.

Bad Robot's next big production is HBO's Westworld Season 3, which premieres later this month. Bad Robot's massive deal with Warner Bros. also includes video games, but none of these projects have been announced.

Abrams was working on a video game with Fortnite creator Epic Games called Spyjinx. However, there have been no recent updates on the game. In fact, the game's Twitter account hasn't posted in more than two years. It remains to be seen if Bad Robot's new deal with WarnerMedia may impact Spyjinx. As of September 2019, however, Spyjinx was still in development.