Gareth Edwards had a pretty big 2010. His low-budget, and very clever alien invasion flick “Monsters” turned out to be a genre hit and his calling card to Hollywood, allowing him to bag the director’s chair for the upcoming “Godzilla” redo. “Monsters” has also made a star out of one of it’s leads, Scoot McNairy who has Andrew Dominik‘s “Cogan’s Trade” and Ben Affleck‘s “Argo” on his calendar. And while a “Monsters” sequel is moving ahead with Edwards producing, he’s got another original idea for a movie that he wants to bring to the big screen.
In our interview with the director last fall he spilled some details on a sci-fi project he’s developing for producer Timur Bekmambetov. “It’s a science fiction film, it’s way more ambitious than ‘Monsters,” he said adding. “The tagline is very vague, it’s an epic human story set in a futuristic world without humanity.” It’s a project he plans to write and direct, and while we haven’t heard anything since the folks over at /Film have got their hands on a few more details.
According to their source, the film is being pitched as “a robot ‘Star Wars‘ ” and the story will follow “a young human child (probably around 5 years old) and a robot who travel across the galaxy in search of mankind’s origin in a world void of humanity and filled with robots.” Frankly, it sounds more like “The Tree Of Life” than anything George Lucas created, and we figure the comparison to the seminal space franchise probably has to do with some action oriented setpieces. Apparently the budget will be around $35 million which is low enough that studios, who are usually wary of sci-fi as a genre, could be enticed to take it on and Edwards has already proved he can deliver dazzling effects on a dime.
And while all this is a nice update on the project, we’ll have to wait. With “Godzilla” said to be eyeing a 2012 release date (though that was a while ago, and word on the project has grown very quiet), we presume that will roll first before Edwards teams with Bekmambetov. One for them, one for me. It’s how the Hollywood game is generally played, but if Edwards can wow ’em with “Godzilla” he should have no problem getting this off the ground.
