Dulce base movie ‘Umbra’ in production shake-up

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

The upcoming sci-fi conspiracy thriller Umbra – a leaked draft script for which makes strong references to the deep-underground biogenetic research facility alleged to exist in Dulce, New Mexico – is currently undergoing a major production shake-up.

The director originally attached to the production – Roger (Species) Donaldson – was replaced by A-Team helmer Joe Carnahan last year. Carnahan was also in the process of rewriting the original (leaked) version of the script.

Now, according to Deadline.com, Carnahan has dropped out of the Umbra project altogether and has been replaced by veteran director Martin Campbell (The Mask of Zorro, Casino Royale, Green Lantern). The script, meanwhile, is undergoing yet another rewrite – this time at the Oscar-winning hands of Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby). Haggis caused a storm in 2009 when he quit the Church of Scientology after more than three decades of membership ("I was in a cult for thirty-four years. Everyone else could see it. I don’t know why I couldn’t").

Archuleta Mesa, New Mexico, location of alleged Dulce base.

Just how far Campbell and Haggis’ Umbra movie will veer from the original script (which features numerous references to the darker chapters of UFOlogical history, including the alleged human/alien fire fight at Dulce described by ‘whistleblower’ Phil Schneider) remains to be seen.

Umbra will begin shooting in the spring and will hit cinemas sometime in 2013.

For a (potentially plot-spoiling) summary of the UFOlogical content of the original leaked Umbra script, see here.

For the full script itself, see here.

Related:

What is 'UMBRA'?

Bradley Cooper to star in Dulce Base movie 'Umbra'?

Bradley Cooper to star in Dulce base movie 'Umbra'?

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Star of The Hangover and The A-Team Bradley Cooper is in talks with Endgame Productions to star in the alien invasion thriller Umbra, which - as revealed last month by Silver Screen Saucers - draws inspiration from longstanding rumours surrounding the Dulce base - an alleged deep underground biogenetic research facility said to be located in New Mexico.

According to horror news site Bloody Disgusting, if cast, "Cooper would play the character of 'David Underwood,' an investment banker who finds himself mixed up in a major government conspiracy - one that's life changing. His world unravels when he is accidentally delivered an audio cassette which reveals the government's complicity in an alien plot to breed with human chromosomes."

For an overview of Umbra's alien/Dulce-related content, check out my brief review of a leaked early draft of the movie's script.

For the script itself (currently being re-written), see here.

Umbra will likely hit cinemas in early 2013.

The UMBRA: original screenplay online

Update on Dulce movie, The UMBRA:

The movie's original screenplay (now in the process of being re-written) is available to view online. When last I checked several weeks ago this was not the case, or at least I was unable to locate it after a lengthy search.

I had received my copy of the screenplay directly from one its original reviewers and had been advised not to republish the document for obvious legal reasons. But seeing as the screenplay apparently is now available for any and all to view, knock yourselves out (don't read it right before yo go to bed, though!).

Download The UMBRA screenplay here...

http://www.mediafire.com/?pcdac9j1qm64jus

CORRECTION: In my last post on this movie, I said that the character of Michael Lazar is "sucided". Reading the script a second time, however, I realise I was mistaken. Lazar is not suicided, but his death is nevertheless carefully 'engineered' by the powers that be...

What is 'UMBRA'?

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS POTENTIAL PLOT SPOILERS FOR A FORTHCOMING MOVIE

"UMBRA" is a Latin word that refers to "a dark area, especially the blackest part of a shadow from which all light is cut off."

"UMBRA" is also a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) code word used to denote the highest-level compartment of Communications Intelligence (COMINT) - also known as Special Intelligence. Notable in this context is a "Top Secret UMBRA" NSA affidavit dating from October 1980 which gives reasons why certain information relating to UFOs is exempt from disclosure.



Now, UMBRA is to be a Hollywood movie. A paranoid thriller, to be precise, "about a man who finds an old cassette tape which reveals a horrifying secret."

Details of this movie first emerged back in 2009, when Roger Donaldson was attached to direct and Nicholas Cage to star, but budgetary concerns about the production - as well as Cage's numerous other movie commitments at the time - meant that it never really got off the ground.

The movie's original screenplay was written by newcomer Steven Karczynski and was leaked online in June 2009 and reviewed by a handful of bemused amateur critics. The consensus was that an intriguing and gripping conspiracy thriller in the vein of Coppola's The Conversation was torpedoed in its final act by an unexpected sci-fi twist. The screenplay itself is no longer viewable online, but the reviewers' original comments remain, and they confirm what many will already be suspecting: UMBRA is - or, at least, was - a UFO movie.

The script reviewers' comments are not entirely revelatory, but they do tell us that the would-be movie's plot features a "top secret government agency... apparently powerful enough to employ trained killers, track citizens, intercept phone calls and emails, and gain access to private security deposit boxes." The NSA immediately springs to mind, even if it is not explicitly referred to.

One reviewer noted that "the last name of the man who escaped in the script is 'Lazar'" - a possible nod to Bob Lazar, who famously thrust Area 51 into the spotlight in the late-1980s.

The screenplay's ending apparently is ambiguous, but one reviewer speculated that, in the film, "aliens were harvesting humans for their chromosomes or cross-breeding with them or turning them into surrogate wombs 'ALIEN' style."

"I am a little confused," wrote another reviewer, and asked "was the government trying to stop them [the aliens], were they part of it [the conspiracy], or was there little left of the government that wasn't alien?"

Any questions concerning UMBRA's original incarnation are likely to remain open, however, as the script is now being re-written by Joe Carnahan (The A-Team (2010)) who will also direct the movie for Endgame Productions (the film originally was to be produced by Relativity Media). Whether or not the script's alien element will survive its reboot is uncertain and there is no release date for the movie as yet, though it is unlikely to hit cinemas before the end of 2012 as new director Carnahan is currently tied up with another project entitled The Grey (not alien-related).

Intriguingly, UMBRA's original director - Roger Donaldson - worked closely with the Pentagon on the political thriller Thirteen Days, and with the CIA on Agency pet project The Recruit. Donaldson also directed the alien movie Species. While new helmer Joe Carnahan's production history isn't nearly so interesting as Donaldson's, UMBRA - if and when it reaches the big screen - is nevertheless certainly one to watch out for.