The Dwelling: Michael B. Jordan to produce and maybe star in thriller

Written by Aaron Jayh, the short thriller story The Dwelling has never been published – but that’s not stopping it from serving as the basis of a film that has Prisoners and Raised by Wolves writer Aaron Guzikowski writing the screenplay, with Michael B. Jordan and Liz Raposo’s company Outlier Society attached to produce. Jordan is also considering starring in the film. Deadline reports that Amazon Studios came out the winner in a bidding war over the project, paying an amount somewhere in the high six figures. Ground Control’s Scott Glassgold will also be producing the film with Jordan and Raposo.

Deadline notes that “Several studios bid and put together talent alignments, but it came down to Amazon and Netflix.” And Amazon won.

The Dwelling will tell the story of a newly divorced father who discovers a house buried in his backyard. He is a former all pro football player trying to ease into retirement, and the hits he took on the field starts to make him unsure what is real and imagined, as things begin to go awry. 

Deadline hears that the short story “has a fantastic male lead at its center”, so it makes sense that Jordan might end up taking that role for himself.

Outlier Society has a first-look film deal and an overall television deal with Amazon, which they signed back at the start of 2021. The first Outlier / Amazon collaboration was the Tom Clancy adaptation Without Remorse, which starred Jordan as popular Clancy character John Clark, a.k.a. John Kelly. The character had previously been played by Willem Dafoe in Clear and Present Danger and by Liev Schreiber in The Sum of All Fears, but Jordan is set to become the first actor to play the role twice when he stars in the Without Remorse sequel Rainbow Six.

The Dwelling sounds like an interesting thriller project, and when I started reading the synopsis I definitely didn’t expect to see anything like someone finding “a house buried in his backyard”. I look forward to seeing how this story is going to play out.

Are you interested in The Dwelling? Would you like to see Michael B. Jordan play the lead role? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.