Matt Reeves Unites With 'Searching' Team For HBO Max Series 'The Future'; 'Searching 2' Finds Directors

Matt Reeves Unites With ‘Searching’ Team For HBO Max Series ‘The Future’; ‘Searching 2’ Finds Directors

HBO Max is developing a sci-fi tech drama calledThe Future, which is based on authorDan Frey’s upcoming book.Matt Reeves(The Batman) is set to executive produce the series alongsideAneesh Chaganty,Natalie Qasabian, andSev Ohanian, the trio behind films like 2018’s innovativeSearchingand last year’s thrillerRun.

Plus, Sony’s Stage 6 has announced that it has found a pair of directors to helmSearching 2, which will be set in the same universe as the first film but follow a whole new cast of characters. Get the details on both of these projects below.

Deadline reports that Chaganty, Qasabian, and Ohanian are teaming up with Warner Bros. TV, Matt Reeves, and Reeves' 6th & Idaho production company to makeThe Future, which is “the story of two best friends who invent the most revolutionary technological device in modern human history.” Dan Frey will write the show based on his book, and executive produce.

The science fiction show will be set in today’s Silicon Valley, and is said to be “grappling with pressing questions about our relationship with technology, told through an innovative multimedia style that’s never been seen on TV.” Considering how that trio changed the game with Screenlife movies through their work onSearching, and that Chaganty himself worked in Silicon Valley for years, you can see why this would be a project that drew their interest. Chaganty is set to direct, and it’s now clear this wasthe show he was alluding towhen I spoke with him around the release ofRun.

Meanwhile, Chagany and Ohanian wrote the story forSearching 2, which Deadline announced will officially be written and directed byWill MerrickandNick Johnson, the editors of the originalSearching. Plot details are still scarce, but we know it will follow a new group of characters, and Chaganty has hinted that it might involve the alien invasion subplot that subtly played out in the background of the original film:

Aliens and quality.

— Aneesh Chaganty (@aneeshchaganty)June 03, 2025

The impact Merrick and Johnson had on the originalSearchingcannot be overstated. They had to build every single graphic and piece of text that appeared in that movie from scratch, and were so integral to the final look of the movie that they were also credited as “directors of virtual photography,” since the film’s dynamic visuals were not static like some other Screenlife movies that came before it.

“With such restrictive visual parameters, a movie likeSearching 2requires a fresh visual style to separate it from the original,” Chaganty said in a statement. “I’ve contributed what I can to this growing sub-genre. But if there’s anyone on the planet with the potential to take it even further, it’s Nick and Will, who were there from the beginning.”