Gibson Shoots For The Stars

Mel Gibson, riding high on the huge success of What Women Want, has teamed up with Home Improvement's Tim Allen to develop sci-fi comedy StarChild. Touted as a comic send-up of the science fiction genre, the film will follow the fortunes of a social misfit CIA agent who comes to the assistance of a friendly extra-terrestrial, helping him return home after he is stranded on earth following a ruinous interplanetary war. Having played the Kirk-esque captain of a TV spaceship crew in Galaxy Quest and voiced the delusional space ranger Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story and Toy Story 2 the film should prove familiar territory for Allen. However StarChild will mark Gibson's debut foray into the genre. No start date has yet been announced, but it is expected to go into production shortly after the threatened writers and actors strike this summer. Allen, who has had an up-and-down career on the big screen recently signed up for the comedy Joe Somebody and will next be seen this summer in Disney's Big Trouble.