It seems like just yesterday when Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci, the screenwriters for summer smashes like Star Trek, Transformers (2007) and its 2009 sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, were in the trades every other day with new projects. A Star Trek sequel! Cowboys and Aliens! A view-master movie!

Instead, Kurtzman’s been given the go-ahead by DreamWorks and Steven Spielberg to direct his first full-length feature, Welcome to People, which is based on a script he wrote with Orci and director Jody Lambert. According to Vulture, Kurtzman decided to pitch his old script once he and Orci got hot in Hollywood, lest he be relegated to genre flicks.

Welcome to People is definitely not action or alien-friendly, according to what Vulture and other outlets like Heat Vision are describing.

Vulture reports:

Welcome to People tells the story of a struggling twentysomething man who, after flying home to L.A. for the funeral of his estranged record-producer father, discovers that the will stipulates that he must deliver $150,000 in cash to a 30-year-old alcoholic sister he never knew existed, and her troubled 12-year-old son. Determined to keep the money to solve his own problems, he’s nonetheless fascinated by his unknown kin and makes contact with the two without revealing who he really is.

Will an old script that they’re getting made by virtue of their success on other projects really fly? Although Kurtzman and Orci have proved their value on action/sci-fi fare, Welcome to People sounds melodramatic and what younger screenwriters come up with a la Zach Braff’s Garden State where everyone takes themselves very seriously and there’s a type of everything-and-the-kitchen-sink dysfunction junction. Then again, Steven Spielberg’s blessing carries a weight in Hollywood like few others, so perhaps the script itself has more dimension than what these tidbits suggest.

And in the distance, I hear the wails, “What about the view-master movie, dammit?!”

Filed under: Drama, Deals, Scripts, Newsstand, Dreamworks, Steven Spielberg

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“Star Trek” fans across the Internet — including my good pal Jordan Hoffman at UGO — are dismayed this morning to read the news that Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks will produce the Alex Kurtzman‘s feature directorial debut. This comes only days after the news that the accomplish filmmaker will also be working with Kurtzman and his writing partner Roberto Orci on developing a TV adaptation of the comic book series “Locke & Key.” The reason this is upsetting for “Star Trek” fans is simple: the duo, among their many other commitments, are also in the process of scripting the sequel to J.J. Abrams‘ 2009 reboot.

Kurtzman’s pitch, which he wrote with Orci and documentarian Jody Lambert, has nothing to do with space aliens, fringe government divisions, giant transforming robots or anything similar. The story follows a twentysomething man who is given the task in his father’s will of delivering $150,000 in cash to a sister he didn’t know existed and her son. He decides to keep the money but makes contact with this lost family members, without revealing who he actually is. The script was written six years ago; Kurtzman pulled it out in a bid to break free of the geek-driven trends set by his past work, Vulture reports.

I wouldn’t be too worried, “Trek” fans. Kurtzman and Orci are notoriously cagey when it comes to discussing any projects in development. Paramount has a release date set for the sequel and we know for a fact that the guys have been working on the script. It’s finished by now for all we know. They told us at San Diego Comic-Con that they were making “significant progress on the story.” They also described some of their process, how they portion out parts of the day for working on different things.

Look: they’ve got a hit TV series in “Fringe,” another TV series to develop with “Locke & Key” and a major Paramount franchise in “Star Trek.” None of that is going away. “Welcome to People” will happen, sure, but there’s no timetable in the Vulture report. They write that the cast is expected to “coalesce quickly,” but I wouldn’t start waving torches and channeling that nerd-rage just yet.