Phil Lord and Chris Miller Will Direct COVID-19 Movie ‘The Premonition’

Does anyone actually want a non-documentary movie about the COVID-19 pandemic? I honestly don’t know, but Hollywood seems to think the answer is “yes.” The latest entry in a growing line-up of pandemic-based movies is The Premonition, which is based on the book by Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and The Big Short. Phil Lord and Chris Miller have come on board to direct the pic, which tracks the “early days of COVID-19 and those U.S. heroes who tried to warn against the dangers of underestimating the deadly seriousness of the killer virus.”

Variety is reporting that Phil Lord and Chris Miller will direct The Premonition for Universal, based on the recently published Michael Lewis book The Premonition: A Pandemic Story. Here’s the book’s official synopsis:

For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about.

Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society. A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.

The tone of the movie adaptation is being described as akin to All the President’s Men, which sounds like it’ll be a change of pace for Lord and Miller, who usually gravitate towards comedic projects. As weary as I am for pretty much any movie dealing with the pandemic at the moment, I have to admit this sounds like it has a lot of potential. And Lord and Miller’s previous work has made me interested in pretty much everything they do, so I’m willing to give The Premonition a shot. I’m particularly interested in seeing them apply themselves to a drama for a change.

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