This Is America and It Follows directors might team up for Man Alive

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Fresh off of creating a viral hit with the Childish Gambino / Donald Glover music video "This Is America" (pictured above), the original upload of which has racked up almost 300 million views in just over a month, director Hiro Murai is in talks to make his feature directorial debut with 20th Century Fox's sci-fi thriller MAN ALIVE.

MAN ALIVE began as a spec script written by NFL media specialist Joseph Greenberg that Fox acquired two years ago. Since then, the script has received a rewrite from IT FOLLOWS writer/director David Robert Mitchell. The story is set after 

the invasion of earth by an alien species, when a man faced with isolation and loneliness in order to survive realizes he might not be alone after all. 

The initial idea occurred to Greenberg when he was watching the 1978 version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and wondered, "What if there was someone in that universe who couldn’t be absorbed (by the pod people), who just woke up the same every day?" That sounds like an intriguing set-up to me. When the script first sold, Greenberg gave an interview to Final Draft that mentioned an epic battle and a set piece involving an axe – it will be interesting to see if those make it from spec to screen.

MAN ALIVE is being produced by Leigh Kittay, John Cameron, Chris Bender, Jake Weiner, and Fargo TV series creator Noah Hawley. At one point, Hawley was considering making his feature directorial debut with this project. Matt Reilly is overseeing the production for Fox.