WIRE Buzz: Malorie movie in early stages; Roswell creator exits; and Tesla trailer

Sandra Bullock should start practicing her blind acting skills, because a film adaptation of Josh Malerman's Bird Box sequel, Malorie, is reportedly in the works.

"I can’t say much, but I can say that it is in development. Sometimes it’s weird, all this secrecy, but I’m game," the author told Inverse.

It's probably safe to assume that Netflix is the one looking (get it?) to bring the upcoming novel to the screen. The movie version of Bird Box enjoyed the streamer's biggest debut for an original film; over 45 million accounts allegedly watched it within the first week.

Credit: Dark Regions Press

Going on sale July 21, the follow-up is set more than a decade after the events of the first book. Now living at a defunct summer camp with her son and adopted daughter, the paranoid Malorie Hayes decides to once again brave the world of mysterious creatures that drive people insane.

Chatting with SYFY WIRE, Malerman described Malorie as "pee-your-pants scary fun."

Carina Adly MacKenzie is vacating her position as creator/showrunner of The CW's Roswell, New Mexico. Per The Hollywood Reporter, her "relationship with studio Warner Bros. Television had been strained for some time."

Based on the report, the final straw arrived when WBTV was forced to do "damage control" after MacKenzie took to Twitter last month to accuse the U.K.'s ITV of cutting a same-sex "love scene" from a certain episode. A rep for ITV2 refuted her claims of homophobia and bigotry, stating that "scenes involving sexual content were edited in keeping with the regulator, Ofcom's, guidelines."

"I have made the difficult decision to resign from my role on Roswell, New Mexico. I do not take this decision lightly, but ultimately due to fundamental differences, I must depart and entrust Roswell, New Mexico to capable hands," MacKenzie said in a statement to THR. "I am so proud of what we built over the last two years, and I believe in the heart and soul of the show: asking tough questions, striving to make the world better, amplifying marginalized voices, and fighting the good fight."

"The third season of the series will return to The CW as part of the network’s 2021 midseason lineup," added a rep for WBTV.

Roswell, NM is the second television translation of Melinda Metz's Roswell High books.

Ethan Hawke is absolutely electric in the first trailer for Tesla, a biopic about Nikola Tesla, the inventor, who often gets obscured by the looming shadow cast by Thomas Edison. Twin Peak's Kyle MacLachlan co-stars as Edison in the unconventional historical flick from Michael Almereyda.

Utilizing fourth-wall-breaking narration, anachronistic technology, and atmospheric backdrops, the film explores Tesla's "uphill battle to bring his revolutionary electrical system to fruition," as well as the "thornier challenges" involved "with his new system for worldwide wireless energy," reads the synopsis.

Watch the trailer below:

Jim Gaffigan and Donnie Keshawarz play George Westinghouse and J.P. Morgan, respectively. Eve Hewson takes up the role of Morgan's daughter, Anne, who "analyzes and presents the story as it unfolds, offering a distinctly modern voice to this scientific period drama which, like its subject, defies convention."

"Almereyda lays tracks to take Tesla in a dozen wild directions," wrote Amy Nicholson in her review for Variety. "Early on, Anne whips out a MacBook to use Google image search. Later, Edison kills time on a cellphone. Almereyda’s entitled to meld past and present — Tesla was a man of the future. Yet, having ordered the audience onboard, Almereyda doesn’t go anywhere with the gambit."

This is the second movie in the last few years to depict the professional and scientific rivalries among Tesla, Edison, and Westinghouse. The first was Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's The Current War in 2017.

Hawke and Almereyda previously worked together on projects like 2000's Hamlet and 2014's Cymbeline. Tesla strikes theaters and VOD Friday, August 21.