'Catfish' Duo to Direct Analeigh Tipton in Blumhouse Thriller 'Viral'

Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman's claim to fame was the phony relationship documentary Catfish, a film that launched an MTV series and brought "catfishing" into the national spotlight. They took their social media savvy to the next level with two of the more visually inventive Paranormal Activity movies, and now they're back with Blumhouse Productions for a thriller that sounds pretty straight forward.

The duo will direct Viral, with Analeigh Tipton (Warm Bodies, Crazy Stupid Love) tapped to star. Barbara Marshall originally penned the Black List-approved script that has Tipton playing Susan, "whose suburban life with her parents and sister Emma is upturned when a lethal parasitic virus spreads to their neighborhood and they’re trapped within their quarantined city along with the increasingly violent infected."

Christopher Landon, who wrote Joost and Schulman's Paranormal Activity films, has given the film a rewrite, and it's probably not out of the realm of possibility he adds some "found footage" element to it.

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'Catfish' Duo Find Their 'Nerve'; Anne Fletcher Directs 'Don't Mess with Texas'

* The duo of Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman have made their bones in the found footage arena, directing Catfish and a pair of Paranormal Activity flicks. But now that they've gotten away from the horror franchise they are moving in a different direction. They will next direct Nerve, a Young Adult adaptation based on the popular novel by Jeanne Ryan. Penned by American Horror Story's Jessica Sharzer, the story follows "a high school senior wallflower who, in an attempt to broaden her horizons, joins a global online game of provocative truth or dare while an audience of "watchers" vote and comment. But as she becomes a sensation and advances higher and higher, the game evolves and soon she finds herself in a dangerous and life-ending situation." It's unclear where this will fall for the duo as they are currently working on an untitled thriller reteaming them with Blumhouse Productions, and are set to helm a big screen version of Edward Abbey's 1975 novel, Monkey Wrench Gang. [THR]

* Anne Fletcher (27 Dresses) has entered talks to direct Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara in Don't Mess with Texas, a comedy they agreed to team up on last year. The buddy pairing is described as a female Midnight Run, and has Witherspoon as a cop and Vergara as a prisoner forced to go on the run from corrupt cops. Filming is set to begin this spring during Vergara's break from Modern Family. Fletcher last directed Seth Rogen and Barbara Streisand in The Guilt Trip, and hopefully this one fares much better.

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