I saw Borys Kit‘s 1.10 Hollywood Reporter story about Michelle Pfeiffer being cast in Alex Kurtzman‘s Welcome to People, his DreamWorks-funded directing debut that begins shooting next week. And I thought, “Okay…another film to add to the high-hopes list.”

And then I went, “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute…Kurtzman as in Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the fisticuffs-and-fireballs screenwriting team? Described by the N.Y. Times three years ago as “the go-to screenwriters for mega-budget fare like Mission: Impossible III, The Island, Transformers,” etc.? Good God.

I wouldn’t call Kurtzman and Orci demonic but they’re certainly tinged with brimstone and sulfur for having written for Michael Bay. Orci and Kurtzman are producing Welcome to People and Kurtzman has written the script. Yes, we all deserve a second chance and I suspect that these guys are trying to climb out of the hole they’ve dug themselves into, and I sympathize. But they’re still Kurtzman and Orci. Forget the list for the time being. Forewarned is forearmed.

The film “follows a businessman who returns home after his estranged father’s death and discovers that he has an alcoholic sister with a 12-year-old son” and eventually “reexamine[s] his life while trying to form new bonds with his family,” blah blah. Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks and Olivia Wilde are costarring.