Unless you just so happen to be some OCD laden short film hoarder, it is unlikely that the name Julius Onah will ring any bells.  He’s had a relatively short tenure in the industry and though many film fanatics (myself included) may only greet his name with a blank befuddled stare, his talents have at least been enough to capture the attention of J.J. Abrams, so much so that he has been selected to helm the new Abrams Produced feature “The God Particle”.

Now I’m sure some of you immediately conjured up the image of a big budget docu-blockbuster based on the similarly titled book by Leon Lederman, but fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately?), the film and the book have pretty much nothing to do with each other.

The God Particle tells the story of a band of American Astronauts who are left stranded in space after a Hadron Collider mishap causes planet Earth to mysteriously disappear.  The film is to be a joint venture between Abrams’ Bad Robot and Paramount’s new micro-budget production house Insurge Pictures.  The appointment of the relatively unknown Onah should really come as no surprise.  After all, the power house backed Insurge is a company founded on the idea that you can make a lot more money if you just hire a cheap “up and coming” Director and restrict your film budget to under 10 million.  I mean it worked for J.J. Abrams with Cloverfield did it not?

The high concept/low budget nature of this film makes me suspect that in all likelihood it will be shot in the ever so tiresome “found footage” format.  Obviously this is pure speculation on my part, but I can only hope that both Onah and Abrams will have the courage to take an approach that I can’t readily find saturating YouTube.

Sourcery: Variety