MGM Studios and it’s productions have been stuck in development hell for the past year, and just this past July the studio received a sixth extension on debt payments from its 140 creditors. Coinciding with that extension, MGM reportedly hired writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan (Saw 3D) to write a feature based on the sci-fi television show, The Outer Limits which aired on ABC from 1963-65.
Variety reports that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer paid Melton and Dunstan somewhere in the mid-six figures range for their big-screen Outer Limits script. Melton and Dunstan say that the work commenced in mid-July but the studio spokesperson disputes the claim, saying that the writers were paid just weeks ago, but insist that they were hired long before the studio’s current financial problems.
[The Shakedown]
With MGM films like James Bond 007: Blood Stone, The Hobbit: Part 1 and The Hobbit: Part 2 being stalled because of their budget problems, I wonder where The Outer Limits falls on their priority list?