in development

hotel hotel hotel hotel (feature film)

*Featured on The Black List 2021
Genre Sci-Fi/Thriller
Writer/Director Michael Shanks

A man wakes up trapped in a mysterious hotel room. All alone in a mind-bending prison, his only chance for escape is teamwork: with himself…

time trap (feature film)

Hopscotch Features
Genre Sci-Fi/Adventure
Writer/Director Michael Shanks
Producers Andrew Mason, Troy Lum, Maeva Gatineau and Kata Mandic

After a devastating crash, an intergalactic traveler becomes stranded on the long-abandoned Planet Earth. His only hope to get home comes from a device that creates temporary bubbles to the past.

Teaming up with the resurrected memory of a teenage girl, together they journey across the wasteland, exploring the memories of a dead planet to find a way home.

Development Funding Screen Australia

together (feature film)

Princess Pictures Pty Ltd
Genre Horror/Relationship Drama
Writer/Director Michael Shanks
Producers Laura Waters, Mike Cowap
Executive Producer Emma Fitzsimons, Andrew Mittman
Script Consultant Michael Clear (Annabelle: Creation, The Nun, Aquaman 2)

After trading their social lives for a mortgage, a not-so-young-anymore couple move to the country to begin the next step of their strained relationship. Whilst settling into their new home, they contract an unexplainable illness – an infection that causes intense physical horrors the further apart they are. Now to survive they must separate before they become a single, new being – unable to determine where one of their bodies ends and the other’s begins.

Development Funding Screen Australia

Caper (Series)

Format 6 x 45 minute TV Series
Genre Action/Comedy
Writer/Director Michael Shanks
Commissioned by SBS2/SBS-Viceland

Out of prospects and bankrupt, an idea strikes Ash whilst watching his Brother perform in a pro-wrestling match: If it’s this easy for people to invest in a fake conflict between absurd, masked characters then just maybe it could fly in the real world.
Now this failing comic-book author conceives of a massive scam — Create Melbourne’s first Supervillain, thus necessitating the need for Melbourne’s first Superhero to save the day. The public will have no idea that these secretly allied fighters are working the public to cash in on the only real, modern, superpower: celebrity…

A six part series commissioned by SBS2 as a larger scale follow up to ‘The Wizards of Aus’ under the title ‘The Heroes of Aus’.