From acclaimed thrillers like ‘The Grey’ and ‘Lone Survivor’ to cult favorites such as ‘Killing Them Softly’ and ‘Dredd’ to whatever you call ‘Machine Gun Preacher’, ‘Broken City’, and ‘The Voices’, there are few producers in Hollywood with a more eclectic resume than Adi Shankar. But when he’s not lending his skills to a wide variety of features, the Northwestern University graduate has been working on a series of fan films that he has dubbed his “Bootleg Universe”. In these shorts, he unofficially tackles some of the most popular licensed properties in all of pop culture. For example, he was behind the Punisher short that saw Thomas Jane reprise the role of Frank Castle. Shankar also had a hand in the satirical and overly-dark reimagining of ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’. And now it seems that he has his eye on yet another superhero movie to put his own spin on.
During a recent Twitter interaction with a fan, Shankar revealed that he’d love to give the Bootleg Universe treatment to 2012 found footage superhero movie ‘Chronicle’ from writer Max Landis and director Josh Trank. Landis then chimed in to let the producer know that the script for the unproduced sequel was out there somewhere. Then things started to sound more and more like an impending collaboration:
@sleepofgiants @Uptomyknees I wanna make a Bootleg Chronicle 2.
— Adi Shankar (@adishankarbrand) January 22, 2017
@Uptomyknees @sleepofgiants I think we need a 10-12 min version, and I don’t want to be the one that truncates your script.
— Adi Shankar (@adishankarbrand) January 22, 2017
Over the years, there has been talk of an official sequel for ‘Chronicle’. However, one has yet to materialize. At one point back in 2014, the studio had hired new writers to pen the script while Landis and Trank moved on to various projects. Since then, there have been no developments on the production, which almost makes this the best time for Shankar and Landis to work on it. Without Fox to stop them, this short could be as dark as the writer had intended his sequel to be. It would definitely be within the producer’s wheelhouse to deliver something much darker than the source material since that’s essentially what he’s created with the existing five Bootleg shorts. Although, since these types of interactions take place on Twitter every day, it will be most interesting to see if anything actually comes of this one.
Until then, check out all five of the Bootleg Universe films in this YouTube playlist below:
Would you like to see Adi Shankar collaborate with Max Landis to bring audiences back to the world of ‘Chronicle’? What sort of twists could you see the producer bringing to that property? And are you still interested in seeing an actual feature length sequel to the acclaimed found footage superhero movie after all this time? Sound off in the comments.
Despite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
