Prometheus Writer’s Next Space Flick Finds Oscar-Nominated Director

By Nick Venable | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

prometheusAfter Prometheus became a hit in 2012, it seemed like screenwriter Jon Spaihts was destined to find steady genre work, but none of his follow-up scripts have been produced just yet. One of those screenplays, the sci-fi love story Passengers, has had some setbacks over the last two years, but it’s finally moving forward with a solid filmmaker at the helm, as The Imitation Game director Morten Tyldum has signed on to right this (space)ship once and for all.

Tyldum, who is currently in the running for Best Director at this year’s Academy Awards, is quite an interesting choice for Passengers, as it will be both his first science fiction film and his first project for a major studio. Luckily, this isn’t some massive effects-driven flick that will take a decade’s worth of post-production before seeing a release.

Passengers is set on a massive spacecraft hurtling through the cosmos on the way to a distant planet, where the aim is colonization. Of the thousands currently in hibernation, one man is awakened after a malfunction occurs, even though it’s still 90 years before the destination will be reached. And so, instead of just coping with this unfortunate situation alone, he takes it upon himself to wake up a female passenger, and a strange love story blossoms. I’m highly intrigued by where this narrative goes in Tyldum’s hands.

Back when Passengers first hit the public consciousness, it was going to star Keanu Reeves and Reese Witherspoon as the doomed couple (then Witherspoon bailed and Rachel McAdams came aboard), but they all eventually dropped out of the project once it started treading water. It was originally set up by The Weinstein Company, but Sony ended up taking the reins late last year in the midst of their hack problems.

While everyone heaped prestige on the Norwegian director for his work telling the story of Alan Turing’s life, I’m far more impressed with his previous film, Headhunters, which features some of the craziest (and most disgusting) sequences of any movie in the past decade. Check out the trailer below.

Spaihts’ career will really take off in the next two years, as he’s also written the script for Universal’s upcoming Mummy reboot, as well as the one for Marvel’s Doctor Strange. For those playing Six Degrees of Morten Tyldum, future Doctor Strange and former Alan Turing, Benedict Cumberbatch, is the link to Spaihts.

According to Deadline, Sony plans on bringing together two more marquee names for Passengers before production begins. Who do you guys want to see getting freaky by the light of a spacecraft’s docking bay?