The screenwriting team of Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci have been on quite the streak over the past few years, working on blockbusters like Transformers and Star Trek. Now Kurtzman will receive the opportunity to step up to the director’s chair with the film Welcome to People, based on a script he wrote with Orci and Jody Lambert. However, this project will be a departure from Kurtzman’s usual blockbuster material as it’s described as “an intimate dramatic script.” The screenplay had been written before Kurtzman and Orci struck it big and now they’re capitalizing on their success to bring this story to the screen, attempting to avoid being pegged as action-only writers. Of course, it always helps to have Steven Spielberg on your side too, as he’s collaborated with the duo before and has picked up the current project for Dreamworks. Read a full plot description after the jump.

“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.”

It seems like there’s some potential here, although it does sound like another awards-bait film. I’m curious as to what a family drama from the guys who wrote Transformers will look like. There’s no word on casting yet, but we should expect that news fairly soon. What do you think of Kurtzman’s directorial debut? Do you like that Kurtzman and Orci are attempting to branch out?

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