After recent news of the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which ended in the demise of all 239 passengers and crew members, it is shocking to think that there are already people in Hollywood considering the tragedy to become the premise of a film. JC Spink, executive producer of the 2005 airline thriller "Red Eye" starring Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy, said to the Hollywood Reporter, "It's a shocking tragedy, but even so, I guarantee there are 50 different people working on 50 different projects that are either inspired by it or based directly on it right now." Spink continues, "Clearly something more happened on that flight than we'll ever know," he adds. "And that's a great jumping-off point." Airline thrillers have a history of finding success in Hollywood, including 1970's "Airplane!", 2005's "Flightplan" (Jodie Foster), and 2008's "Passengers" (Anne Hathaway).

While there is a lot of interest in the story, it may be too early for Hollywood to start pursuing a project that dramatizes the sad tragedy. Alex Heineman, a producer on this year's hit airline thriller Non-Stop, told the Hollywood Reporter, "I think people will wait to see what how it turns out. They say truth is stranger than fiction. And this story is so bizarre. No one knows what happened. Or maybe people do, and they're not saying what happened." Heineman says this is not a project he would personally pursue, out of respect for the victims' families. "I wouldn't chase a story like this -- a true-life disaster story -- because it's sad, and I don't want to be exploiting that kind of situation."

Meanwhile, Australian movie "Deep Water" production has been halted after the Malaysia Airlines MH370 story broke. The movie is a thriller about a flight from Beijing to Sydney that crashes into shark-infested waters. The pre-production on the film, a follow-up to 2012's Bait 3D, has been halted; the official release date is two years away. Managing director of Arclight Films Gary Hamilton told The Telegraph newspaper, "We thought it wasn't the right time to make a film about a plane crash right now. We have decided it is best to pull back on production of the film for a few months." Shanghai Media Group's new action thriller "Last Flight," about a Boeing 747 that takes off from a small Pacific island, with "unusual events," starring Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl) and Zhu Zhu, also cancelled its March 21 premier in Beijing following the plane's disappearance.