Universal might appear to be dumping half the projects it has in development right now (Mary Harron’s adaptation of young adult novel Wicked Lovely was just the latest victim of the turnaround purge), but some movies are apparently still in good standing, with Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinski’s sci-fi epic Oblivion – now called Horizons – in the fast lane, and looking for actresses to star alongside Tom Cruise.
According to Variety, there is a pretty familiar batch of names in the mix getting set to test alongside the Cruiser for two prime female roles. Take a bow Noomi Rapace (soon to be seen in** Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows**) Olivia Wilde (The Change-Up and Cowboys & Aliens), Jessica Chastain (Tree of Life and the upcoming The Help), Brit Marling (Sundance sensation who writes and stars in films such as Another Earth) and Olga Kurylenko (Centurion).
From the sounds of the synopsis in the latest report, the title switch might not be the only change that has taken place since** Toy Story 3**’s Michael Arndt did a polish on the script. While the essential story of a ruined Earth stalked by an alien race and humans living among the clouds remains intact, there appears to have been a slight shift in the focus of the central plot.
Cruise is still playing a man (whose name has now been revealed as Jack) whose job it is to go down to the planet’s surface and repair drones that keep extraterrestrials at bay. But while he was formerly set to discover a crashed life pod with a mysterious woman inside, now the talk is of a story about his former fiancée named Julia and his current love Victoria, who acts as his eyes and ears when he’s on a mission. Still, there’s a chance the whole crashed pod element might remain...
Kosinski is looking to get the film ready for a July 2013 release date. For his part, Cruise is now focusing on annoying Jack Reacher fans by playing the enormously tall, hard nut vigilante in the **One Shot **novel adaptation with Christopher McQuarrie writing and directing.