Nowhere: James Wan producing NBC series about vanishing townspeople

James Wan took us into The Further when he directed the first two Insidious films a decade ago, now he’s set to take us… nowhere. Deadline reports that Wan’s production company Atomic Monster is behind an NBC series called Nowhere, which comes from Siberia and Emerald City creator Matthew Arnold. Arnold serves as creator, executive producer, and showrunner on the show, which is currently in development.

In addition to Atomic Monster, Vertigo Entertainment, Room 101, and Antihero Entertainment also have a hand in the development of Nowhere. Wan will be executive producing with Rob Hackett and Michael Clear for Atomic Monster, while Natalie Viscuso and Roy Lee executive produce for Vertigo, Steve Schneider executive produces for Room 101, and Aengus McLoone does the same for Antihero Entertainment. Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, is the studio.

Arnold originally envisioned Nowhere as a novella, then when he wrote it out it ended up being a novel. Lane Heymont at The Tobias Literary Agency is currently shopping that novel to publishers. The idea is said to be “a high concept mystery in the vein of Manifest or La Brea, with supernatural thriller elements.”

The story of Nowhere watches as a group of individuals awake to find that all the inhabitants from their remote Vermont town have seemingly vanished overnight. Led by the former sheriff, the remaining citizens embark on a mysterious search for their missing loved ones, uncovering numerous supernatural anomalies along the way.

That sounds like a fine set-up for a supernatural mystery thriller series, and it’s easy to see why Wan would want to help bring it into the world. Wan is best known for his directorial efforts, having taken the helm of the horror projects Saw, Dead Silence, Insidious, The Conjuring, Insidious: Chapter 2, The Conjuring 2, and Malignant, as well as the revenge thriller Death Sentence and the action blockbusters Furious 7 and Aquaman. (Plus the upcoming Aquaman sequel.) As a producer, he has been behind the many Conjuring spin-offs that make up the Conjuring Universe, the Insidious prequels and sequels, and movies like Lights Out and M3GAN.

Does Nowhere sound interesting to you, and are you glad to hear James Wan is involved? Let us know by leaving a comment below.