Acclaimed horror director James Wan is dipping his toes into the comedy genre by producing a new half-hour sitcom about aliens for CBS. Wan is, of course, the director of such notable horror hits as Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring, and Malignant. While he hasn’t directed anything since 2023’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Wan has been staying busy behind the scenes producing the upcoming Stephen King adaptations Salem’s Lot and The Monkey, as well as the sequel to the 2021 video game adaptation, Mortal Kombat.
Per Deadline, Wan will produce the new sitcom, titled Area 51, through his Atomic Monster banner, which has also had a hand in producing such TV shows as MacGyver, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Archive 81. Bringing the new sitcom to life are God Friended Me creators Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, and Laura Moran, who previously served as writer and producer on another CBS hit, The Neighborhood.
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In UFO lore, Area 51 is the mysterious government facility in Nevada that’s been said to house the remnants of crashed spacecraft and alien bodies, most notably from the 1947 Roswell incident, which saw an apparent extraterrestrial craft crash on a ranch outside Roswell, New Mexico. Since then, the facility has been a hub for conspiracy theories that claim it partakes in everything from weather manipulation to the creation of time travel technology.
Area 51 will aim to poke fun at those conspiracy theories with a single-camera workplace sitcom shot similar to The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Not much is known about the series thus far, other than that it will follow “the humans and Aliens that work together at the country’s most mysterious place.” There’s no word on casting, or when the series might make its network premiere.
James Wan Has a Ton of New Projects in the Pipeline
In addition to the aforementioned Stephen King adaptation and Mortal Kombat sequel Wan, the 45-year-old Australian filmmaker has no less than 20 other projects he’s working on as either a producer or writer. These include the sequel to the 2022 hit, M3GAN and its spin-off, SOULM8TE, the final film in The Conjuring series, Last Rites, the Insidious spin-off, Thread, and a remake of the Korean hit Train to Busan titled The Last Train to New York, which is currently in limbo following the cancellation of its scheduled 2023 release date.
In addition to the above, it was recently announced that Wan will also be reviving the 1960s classic monster sitcom The Munsters in what is said to be a “darker reimagining” of the lighthearted series which ran from 1964 to 1966 on CBS. The new series, titled 1313, will see Lindsay Anderson Beer jump aboard to serve as showrunner following her 2023 film, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines.
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News of Area 51 comes on the heels of the announcement last month that another extraterrestrial series, Resident Alien, was renewed for a fourth season and will be making the jump from SyFy to USA Network. While Wan’s new sitcom will be vastly different from the Alan Tudyk show, it’s safe to say that its success certainly helped Area 51 get the green light it needed to move forward. We’ll have more news on Area 51, including casting, as it becomes available.