He’s had a big success with his first English language film, as The Imitation Game has seen big box-office success and lots of awards talk. Headhunters director Morten Tyldum must be hoping he’ll have the same luck with a potential first Hollywood studio job: finally getting science fiction romance Passengers off the ground for Sony.
The story of a spaceship transporting thousands of human colonists to a distant planet, Passengers chronicles what happens when a malfunction causes one of them to be rudely awakened 90 years before anyone else. Unable to fix the situation and seemingly doomed to spend his time dying alone, he decides to take the unusual and controversial step to wake up a fellow passenger. Can love bloom in the echoing confines of the ship? Possibly, though we’d imagine his intended is probably going to be fairly annoyed at the imposition...
Jon Spaihts’ script has been cruising through development for a while now, around since at least 2010 and nabbed in a big deal by The Weinstein Company at Cannes in 2012. Since then, it has burned through several potential actors including Reese Witherspoon, Keanu Reeves and Rachel McAdams, with Game Of Thrones director Brian Kirk aboard at one point. The rights became available last month and Sony, along with power producer Neal Moritz, jumped in with an offer. Tyldum is now in early talks to direct and if he takes the gig, he’ll have to hire his own cast. Given the clout of** The Imitation Game**, we doubt he’ll have much trouble.