Despite early praise, Jon Spaihts' sci-fi script Passengers lingered in development limbo for a few years, but is now headed our way as a fully-fledged movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. The first images of the duo have arrived courtesy of Entertainment Weekly, and you can see one above.
Directed by Morten Tyldum, Passengers is set in the future on a gigantic interstellar ship ferrying 5,000 colonists bound for Homestead II, a journey that will take 120 years. Everyone is in suspended animation until an incident rouses one of them (Pratt) and he realises he might be stuck travelling alone until someone else (Lawrence) is awakened and slowly they start to fall in love. But then they discover that the ship is malfunctioning further...
"It was a popular script. It’s one of those stories that really grabs you and you fall in love with it. It’s very smart and funny and clever and such a page turner I couldn’t put it down. Every 10 pages, something new happens!" Tyldum tells the magazine. "At the same time it’s a very intimate movie while taking place on this epic scale. For me, it’s a story about what’s important to live a full life. What are the things we need as humans? It’s not afraid to entertain but at the same time it asks big questions about what does it mean to really feel happy. Every generation has its love story. I feel like this is it. I had to do it."
He's also happy with how it turned out. "You will laugh and cry and hold your breath and be at the edge of your seat. It has chills. It also will make you smile and laugh a lot," the director says. "We wanted a playful movie. And if you have Chris and Jen it’s impossible not to have — they’ve come up with a lot of stuff on set. They’re both extremely funny. In this day of sequels and reboots I think it’s refreshing that it is a completely original story with two of the best movie stars in the world. I’m very, very happy with the movie." For more from Tyldum, head to EW's site.
Passengers, which also features Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne and Aurora Perrineau, will be out in the UK on December 23.